• 


JOBS&& 

LIBRIS 


LEARNING 


AND 


OTHER  ESSAYS 


BY 

JOHN  JAY  CHAPMAN 


NEW  YORK 

MOFFAT,  YARD  AND  COMPANY  |  Ul 

1910 


J 


COPYRIGHT,  1910 
BY  JOHN  JAY  CHAPMAN 


Electrotype*  by 

The  Maple  Press 

York.  Pa. 


CONTENTS 

PAGES 

LEARNING i 

PROFESSORIAL  ETHICS. 39 

THE  DRAMA 53 

NORWAY 83 

DOCTOR  HOWE 89 

JESTERS 149 

THE  COMIC 155 

THE  UNITY  OF  HUMAN  NATURE 175 

THE  DOCTRINE  OF  NON-RESISTANCE  .    .    .   193 

CLIMATE 207 

THE  INFLUENCE  OF  SCHOOLS 213 

THE  ^ESTHETIC 235 


LEARNING 


LEARNING. 

AN  expert  on  Greek  Art  chanced  to  describe  in 
my  hearing  one  of  the  engraved  gems  in  the 
Metropolitan  Museum.  He  spoke  of  it  as 
'  certainly  one  of  the  great  gems  of  the  world,' 
and  there  was  something  in  his  tone  that  was 
even  more  thrilling  than  his  words.  He  might 
have  been  describing  the  Parthenon  or  Beet 
hoven's  Mass, — such  was  the  passion  of  rever 
ence  that  flowed  out  of  him  as  he  spoke.  I 
went  to  see  the  gem  afterwards.  It  was  badly 
placed,  and  for  all  artistic  purposes  was  invisi 
ble.  I  suppose  that  even  if  I  had  had  a  good 
look  at  it,  I  should  not  have  been  able  to 
appreciate  its  full  merit.  Who  could? — save 
the  handful  of  adepts  in  the  world,  the  little 
group  of  gem-readers,  by  whom  the  mighty 
music  of  this  tiny  score  could  be  read  at  sight. 
Nevertheless  it  was  a  satisfaction  to  me  to 
have  seen  the  stone.  I  knew  that  through  its 
surface  there  poured  the  power  of  the  Greek 
world;  that  not  without  Phidias  and  Aristotle, 
and  not  without  the  Parthenon,  could  it  have 
come  into  existence.  It  carried  in  its  bosom 
a  digest  of  the  visual  laws  of  spiritual  force, 
and  was  as  wonderful  and  as  sacred  as  any 


LEARNING 

stone  could  well  be.  Its  value  to  mankind 
was  not  to  be  measured  by  my  comprehension 
of  it,  but  was  inestimable.  As  Petrarch  felt 
toward  the  Greek  manuscript  of  Homer  which 
he  owned  but  could  not  read,  so  did  I  feel 
toward  the  gem. 

What  is  Education?  What  are  Art  and 
Religion  and  all  those  higher  interests  in 
civilization  which  are  always  vaguely  held  up 
to  us  as  being  the  most  important  things  in 
life?  These  things  elude  definition.  They 
cannot  be  put  into  words  except  through  the 
interposition  of  what  the  Germans  call  'a 
metaphysic.'  Before  you  can  introduce  them 
into  discourse,  you  must  step  aside  for  a  mo 
ment  and  create  a  theory  of  the  universe;  and  by 
the  time  you  have  done  this,  you  have  perhaps 
befogged  yourself  and  exhausted  your  readers. 
Let  us  be  content  with  a  more  modest  ambi 
tion.  It  is  possible  to  take  a  general  view  of 
the  externals  of  these  subjects  without  losing 
reverence  for  their  realities.  It  is  possible  to 
consider  the  forms  under  which  art  and  relig 
ion  appear, — the  algebra  and  notation  by 
which  they  have  expressed  themselves  in  the 
past, — and  to  draw  some  general  conclusion 
as  to  the  nature  of  the  subject,  without  becom 
ing  entangled  in  the  subject  itself. 

We  may  deal  with  the  influence  of  the  gem 
without  striving  exactly  to  translate  its  mean 
ing  into  speech.  We  all  concede  its  impor- 

4 


LEARNING 

tance.  We  know,  for  instance,  that  the  admira 
tion  of  my  friend  the  expert  was  no  accident. 
He  found  in  the  design  and  workmanship  of 
the  intaglio  the  same  ideas  which  he  had  been 
at  work  on  all  his  life.  Greek  culture  long 
ago  had  become  a  part  of  this  man's  brain,  and 
its  hieroglyphs  expressed  what  to  him  was 
religion.  So  of  all  monuments,  languages, 
and  arts  which  descend  to  us  out  of  the  past. 
The  peoples  are  dead,  but  the  documents 
remain;  and  these  documents  themselves  are 
part  of  a  living  and  intimate  tradition  which 
also  descends  to  us  out  of  the  past, — a  tradition 
so  familiar  and  native  to  the  brain  that  we 
forget  its  origin.  We  almost  believe  that  our 
feeling  for  art  is  original  with  us.  We  are 
tempted  to  think  there  is  some  personal  and 
logical  reason  at  the  back  of  all  grammar, 
whether  it  be  the  grammar  of  speech  or  the 
grammar  of  architecture, — so  strong  is  the 
appeal  to  our  taste  made  by  traditional  usage. 
Yet  the  great  reason  of  the  power  of  art  is 
the  historic  reason.  'In  this  manner  have 
these  things  been  expressed:  in  similar  manner 
must  they  continue  tcr  be  said.'  So  speaks 
our  artistic  instinct. 

Good  usage  has  its  sanction,  like  religion  or 
government.  WetrjJisjnait_tfee_ usage  without 
pausing  to  think  why  we  do  so.  We  instinct 
ively  correct  a  child,  without  pausing  to  reflect 
that  the  fathers  of  the  race  are  speaking 

5 


LEARNING 

through  us.  When  the  child  says,  'Give  me 
a  apple,'  we  correct  him — "You  must  say,  'An 
apple.' "  What  the  child  really  means,  in  fact, 
is  an  apple. 

All  teaching  is  merely  a  way  of  acquainting 
the  learner  with  the  body  of  existing  tradition. 
If  the  child  is  ever  to  have  anything  to  say 
of  his  own,  he  has  need  of  every  bit  of  this 
expressive  medium  to  help  him  do  it.  The 
reason  is,  that,  so  far  as  expressiveness  goes, 
only  one  language  exists.  Every  experiment 
and  usage  of  the  past  is  a  part  of  this  language. 
A  phrase  or  an  idea  rises  in  the  Hebrew,  and 
niters  through  the  Greek  or  Latin  and  French 
down  to  our  own  time.  The  practitioners 
who  scribble  and  dream  in  words  from  their 
childhood  up, — into  whose  habit  of  thought 
language  is  kneaded  through  a  thousand 
reveries, — these  are  the  men  who  receive, 
reshape,  and  transmit  it.  Language  is  their 
portion,  they  are  the  priests  of  language. 

The  same  thing  holds  true  of  the  other 
vehicles  of  idea,  of  painting,  architecture, 
religion,  etc.,  but  since  we  have  been  speaking 
of  language,  let  us  continue  to  speak 
of  language.  Expressiveness  follows  literacy. 
The  poets  have  been  tremendous  readers 
always.  Petrarch,  Dante,  Chaucer,  Shake 
speare,  Milton,  Goethe,  Byron,  Keats — those 
of  them  who  possessed  not  much  of  the  for 
eign  languages  had  a  passion  for  translations. 
6 


LEARNING 

It  is  amazing  how  little  of  a  foreign  language 
you  need  if  you  have  a  passion  for  the  thing 
written  in  it.  We  think  of  Shakespeare  as  of  a 
lightly-lettered  person  (but  he  was  ransacking 
books  all  day  to  find  plots  and  language  for 
his  plays.  He  reeks  with  mythology,  he 
swims  in  classical  metaphor:  and,  if  he  knew 
the  Latin  poets  only  in  translation,  he  knew 
them  with  that  famished  intensity  of  interest 
which  can  draw  the  meaning  through  the 
walls  of  a  bad  text.  Deprive  Shakespeare 
of  his  sources,  and  he  could  not  have  been 
Shakespeare. 

Good  poetry  is  the  echoing  of  shadowy  / 
tongues,  the  recovery  of  forgotten  talent,  the 
garment  put  up  with  perfumes.  There  is  a 
passage  in  the  Tempest  which  illustrates  the 
free-masonary  of  artistic  craft,  and  how  the 
weak  sometimes  hand  the  torch  to  the  mighty. 
Prospero's  apostrophe  to  the  spirits  is,  surely, 
as  Shakespearian  as  anything  in  Shakespeare 
and  as  beautiful  as  anything  in  imaginative 
poetry. 

"Ye  elves  of  hills,  brooks,  standing  lakes  and 

groves; 

And  ye,  that  in  the  sands  with  printless  foot 
Do  chase  the  ebbing  Neptune,  and  do  fly  him, 
When  he  comes  back;  you  demi-puppets,  that 
By  moonshine  do  the  sour  ringlets  make, 
Whereof  the  ewe  not  bites;  and  you  whose 

pastime 
Is  to  make  midnight  mushrooms'  that  rejoice 

7 


LEARNING 

To  hear  the  solemn  curfew;  by  whose  aid 
(Weak  masters  though  ye  be)  I  have  be- 

dimmed 
The  noontide  sun,  called  forth  the  mutinous 

winds, 

And  'twixt  the  green  sea  and  the  azur'd  vault 
Set  roaring  war:  to  the  dread  rattling  thunder 
Have  I  given  fire,  and  rifted  Jove's  stout  oak 
With  his  own  bolt:  the  strong-bas'd  promon 
tory 
Have  I  made  shake;  and  by  the  spurs 

pluck'd  up 

The  pine  and  cedar:  graves  at  my  command 
Have  waked  their  sleepers;  oped  and  let  them 

forth 
By  my  so  potent  art." 

Shakespeare  borrowed  this  speech  from 
Medea's  speech  in  Ovid,  which  he  knew  in 
the  translation  of  Arthur  Golding;  and  really 
Shakespeare  seems  almost  to  have  held  the 
book  in  his  hand  while  penning  Prospero's 
speech.  The  following  is  from  Golding's 
translation,  published  in  1567: 

"Ye   Ayres  and  windes;  ye  Elves  of  Hilles 

and  Brooks,  of  Woods  alone, 
Of  standing  Lakes  and   of  the    Night    ap 
proach  ye  every  chone. 
Through  helpe  of  whom  (the  crooked  banks 

much  wondering  at  the  thing) 
I  have  compelled  streams  to  run  clean  back 
ward  to  their  spring. 
By  charmes  I  make  the  calm  seas  rough, 

and  make  the  rough  Seas  plaine. 
And   cover  all  the   Skie   with    Clouds  and 
chase  them  thence  again. 
8 


LEARNING 

By  charmes  I  raise  and  lay  the  windes,  and 

burst  the  Viper's  jaw. 
And  from  the  bowels  of  the  Earth  both  stones 

and  trees  doe  draw. 
Whole  woods  and  Forestes  I  remove:  I  make 

the  Mountains  shake, 
And  even  the  Earth  it  selfe  to  grone  and  fear 

fully  to  quake. 
I  call  up  dead  men  from  their  graves:  and 

thee  O  lightsome  Moone 
I  darken  oft,  though  beaten  brasse  abate  thy 

perill  soone. 
Our  Sorcerie  dims  the  Morning  faire,  and 

darkes  the  Sun  at  Noone. 
The    flaming    breath    of    fierie     Bulles   ye 

quenched  for  my  sake. 
And  caused  their  unwieldie  neck  the  bended 

yokes  to  take. 
Among  the  Earthbred  brothers  you  a  mortell 

war  did  set 
And  brought  a  sleepe  the  Dragon  fell  whose 

eyes  were  never  shut." 


There.  is^andjs^o^e^noi^e^ 
pearance  of  old  metapor,  old  trade  secret, 
old  usage  of  art.  No  sooner  has  a  master 
piece  appeared,  that  summarizes  all  knowl 
edge,  than  men  get  up  eagerly  the  next  morn 
ing  with  chisel  and  brush,  and  try  again. 
Nothing  done  satisfies.  It  is  all  in  the  making 
that  the  inspiration  lies;  and  this  endeavor 
renews  itself  with  the  ages,  and  grows  by 
devouring  its  own  offspring. 

The  technique  of  any  art  is  the  whole  body 
of   experimental    knowledge   through    which 

9 


LEARNING 

the  art  speaks.  The  glazes  of  pottery  become 
forgotten  and  have  to  be  hit  upon  over  again. 
The  knack  of  Venetian  glass,  the  principle  of 
effect  in  tiles,  in  lettering,  in  the  sonnet,  in  the 
fugue,  in  the  tower, — all  the.  prestidigitation  of 
art  that  is  too  subtle  to  be  named  or  thought  of, 
must  yet  be  acquired  and  kept  up  by  practice, 
held  to  by  constant  experiment. 

Good  artistic  expression  is  thus  not  only  a 
thing  done :  it  is  a  way  of  life,  a  habit  of  breath 
ing,  a  mode  of  unconsciousness,  a  world  of 
being  which  records  itself  as  it  unrolls.  .We 
call  this  world  Art  for  want  of  a  better  name; 
but  the  thing  that  we  value  is  the  life  within, 
not  the  shell  of  the  creature.  This  shell  is 
what  is  left  behind  in  the  passage  of  time,  to 
puzzle  our  after-study  and  make  us  wonder  how 
it  was  made,  how  such  complex  delicacy  and 
power  ever  came  to  co-exist.  I  have  often 
wondered  over  the  Merchant  of  Venice  as  one 
wonders  over  a  full-blown  transparent  poppy 
that  sheds  light  and  blushes  like  a  cloud. 
Neither  the  poppy  nor  the  play  were  exactly 
hewn  out:  they  grew,  they  expanded  and 
bloomed  by  a  sort  of  inward  power, — uncon 
scious,  transcendent.  The  fine  arts  blossom 
from  the  old  stock, — from  the  poppy-seed  of 
the  world. 

I  am  here  thinking  of  the  whole  body  of 
the  arts,  the  vehicles  through  which  the  spirit 
of  man  has  been  expressed.  I  am  thinking 
10 


LEARNING 

also  of  the  sciences, — whose  refractory,  bel 
ligerent  worshipers  are  even  less  satisfied  with 
any  past  expression  than  the  artists  are,  for 
their  mission  is  to  destroy  and  to  rearrange. 
They  would  leave  nothing  alive  but  them 
selves.  Nevertheless,  science  has  always  been 
obliged  to  make  use  of  written  language  in 
recording  her  ideas.  The  sciences  are  as  much 
a  part  of  recorded  language  as  are  the  arts. 
No  matter  how  revolutionary  scientific  thought 
may  be,  it  must  resort  to  metaphysics  when 
it  begins  to  formulate  its  ultimate  meanings. 
Now  when  you  approach  metaphysics,  the 
Greek  and  the  Hebrew  have  been  there  before 
you:  you  are  very  near  to  matters  which 
perhaps  you  never  intended  to  approach. 
You  are  back  at  the  beginning  of  all  things. 
In  fact,  human  thought  does,  not  advance,  it 
only  recurs.  Every  tone  and  semi-tone  in 
the  scale  is  a  keynote;  and  every  point  in 
the  Universe  is  the  centre  of  the  Universe; 
and  every  man  is  the  centre  and  focus  of  the 
cosmos,  and  through  him  passes  the  whole 
of  all  force,  as  it  exists  and  has  existed  from 
eternity;  hence  the  significance  which  may 
at  any  moment  radiate  out  of  anything. 

The  different  arts  and  devices  that  time 
hands  to  us  are  like  our  organs.  They  are 
the  veins  and  arteries  of  humanity.  You  can 
not  rearrange  them  or  begin  anew.  Your 
verse-forms  and  your  architecture  are  chosen 
ii 


LEARNING 

for  you,  like  your  complexion  and  your 
temperament.  The  thing  you  desire  to  ex 
press  is  in  them  already.  .  Your  labors  do  no 
more  than  enable  you  to  nncTyour  own  soul 
in  them.  If  you  will  begin  any  piece  of  artistic 
work  in  an  empirical  spirit  and  slave  over  it 
until  it  suits  you^ypu  will  find  yourself  obliged 
to  solve  all  the  problems  which  the  artists 
have  been  engaged  on  since  the  dawn  of 
history .7  --Be  as  independent  as  you  like,  you 
will  find  that  you  have  been  anticipated  at 
every  point:  you  are  a  slave  to  precedent, 
because  precedent  has  done  what  you  are 
trying  to  do,  and,  ah,  how  much  better!  In 
the  first  place,  the  limitations,  the  horrible 
limitations  of  artistic  possibility,  will  begin 
to  present  themselves;  few  things  can  be 
done:  they  have  all  been  tried:  they  have 
all  been  worked  to  death:  they  have  all  been 
developed  by  immortal  genius  and  thereafter 
avoided  by  lesser  minds, — left  to  await  more 
immortal  genius.  The  field  of  endeavor 
narrows  itself  in  proportion  to  the  greatness  of 
the  intellect  that  is  at  work.  In  ages  of  great 
art  everyone  knows  what  the  problem  is 
and  how  much  is  at  stake.  Masaccio  died 
at  the  age  of  twenty-seven,  after  having 
painted  half  a  dozen  pictures  which  influenced 
all  subsequent  art,  because  they  showed  to 
Raphael  the  best  solution  of  certain  technical 
questions.  The  Greeks  of  the  best  period 
12 


LEARNING 

were  so  very  knowing  that  everything  ap 
peared  to  them  ugly  except  the  few  attitudes, 
the  few  arrangements,  which  were  capable 
of  being  carried  to  perfection. 

Anyone  who  has  something  to  say  is  thus 
found  to  be  in  one  sense  a  slave,  but  a  rich 
slave  who  has  inherited  the  whole  earth. 
If  you  can  only  obey  the  laws  of  your  slavery, 
you  become  an  emperor:  you  are  only  a  slave 
in  so  far  as  you  do  not  understand  how  to  use 
your  wealth.  If  you  have  but  the  gift  of  sub 
mission,  you  conquer.  Many  tongues,  many 
hands,  many  minds,  a  traditional  state  of 
feeling,  traditional  symbols, — the  whole  passed 
through  the  eyes  and  soul  of  a  single  man, — 
such  is  art,  such  is  human  expression  in  all 
its  million-sided  variety. 

II. 

I  have  thrown  together  these  remarks  in 
an  elliptical  and  haphazard  way,  hoping  to 
show  what  sort  of  thing  education  is,  and  as 
a  prologue  to  a  few  reflections  upon  the 
educational  conditions  in  the  United  States. 

It  is  easy  to  think  of  reasons  why  the  stand 
ards  of  general  education  should  be  low  in 
America.  Almost  every  influence  whicfT  is 
hostile  to  the  development  of  deep  thought 
and  clear  feeling  has  been  at  the  maximum 
of  destructive  power  in  the  United  States. 
We  are  a  new  society,  made  of  a  Babel  of  con- 

13 


LEARNING 

flicting  European  elements,  engaged  in  ex 
ploiting  the  wealth  of  a  new  continent,  under 
conditions  of  climate  which  involve  a  nervous 
reorganization  to  Europeans  who  come  to 
live  with  us.  Our  history  has  been  a  history 
of  quiet  colonial  beginnings,  followed  by  a 
national  life  which,  from  its  inception,  has 
been  one  of  social  unrest.  And  all  this  has 
happened  during  the  great  epoch  of  the  ex 
pansion  of  commerce,  the  thought-destroying 
epoch  of  the  world. 

Let  us  take  a  rapid  glance  at  our  own  past. 
In  the  beginning  we  were  settlers.  Now 
the  settlement  of  any  new  continent  plays 
havoc  with  the  arts  and  crafts.  Let  us 
imagine  that  among  the  Mayflower  pilgrims 
there  had  been  a  few  expert  wood-carvers,  a 
violin  player  or  two,  and  a  master  architect. 
These  men,  upon  landing  in  the  colony, 
must  have  been  at  a  loss  for  employment. 
They  would  have  to  turn  into  backwoods 
men.  Their  accomplishments  would  in  time 
have  been  forgotten.  Within  a  generation 
after  the  landing  of  the  pilgrims  there  must 
have  followed  a  decline  in  the  fine  arts,  in 
scholarship,  and  in  certain  kinds  of  social 
refinement.  This  decline  was,  to  some  ex 
tent,  counteracted  in  our  colonial  era  by  the 
existence  of  wealth  in  the  Colonies  and  by 
the  constant  intercourse  with  Europe,  from 
which  the  newest  models  were  imported  by 

14 


LEARNING 

every  vessel.  Nevertheless,  it  is  hard  for  a 
colony  to  make  up  for  its  initial  loss;  and  we 
have  recently  seen  the  United  States  govern 
ment  making  efforts  on  a  large  scale  to  give 
to  the  American  farmer  those  practices  of 
intensive  cultivation  of  the  soil  which  he  lost 
by  becoming  a  backwoodsman  and  has  never 
since  had  time  to  recover  for  himself. 

The  American  Revolution  was  our  second 
serious  set-back  in  education.  So  hostile  to 
culture  is  war  that  the  artisans  of  France  have 
never  been  able  to  attain  to  the  standards  of 
workmanship  which  prevailed  under  the 
the  old  monarchy.  Our  national  culture 
started  with  the  handicap  of  a  seven  years' 
war,  and  was  always  a  little  behindhand. 
'  During  the  nineteenth  century  the  American 
citizen  has  been  buffeting  the  waves  of  new 
development.  His  daily  life  has  been  an 
experiment.  His  moral,  social,  political  in 
terests  and  duties  have  been  indeterminate; 
nothing  has  been  settled  for  him  by  society. 
Is  a  man  to  have  an  opinion?  Then  he 
must  make  it  himself.  This  demands  a  more 
serious  labor  than  if  he  were  obliged  to  manu 
facture  his  own  shoes  and  candlesticks.  No 
such  draught  upon  individual  intellect  is 
made  in  an  old  country.  You  cannot  get  a 
European  to  understand  this  distressing  over-  . 
taxing  of  the  intelligence  In  America.  Noth 
ing  like  it  has  occurred  before,  because  in  old 

15 


LEARNING 

countries  opinion  is  part  of  caste  and  condi 
tion:  opinion  is  the  shadow  of  interest  and  of 
social  status. 

But  in  America  the  individual  is  not.jpro- 
tected  against  society  at  large  by  the  bulwark 
of  his  class.  He  stands  by  himself.  It  is 
a  noble  idea  that  a  man  should  stand  by 
himself,  and  the  conditions  which  force  a 
man  to  do  so  have  occasionally  created  mag 
nificent  types  of  heroic  manhood  in  America. 
Lincoln,  Garrison,  Emerson,  and  many  lesser 
athletes  are  the  fruits  of  these  very  conditions 
which  isolate  the  individual  in  America  and 
force  him  to  think  for  himself.  Yet  their 
effect  upon  general  cultivation  has  been 
injurious.  It  seems  as  if  character  were 
always  within  the  reach  of  every  human  soul; 
but  men  must  have  become  homogeneous 
before  they  can  produce  art. 

We  have  thus  reviewed  a  few  of  the  causes 
of  our  American  loss  of  culture.  Behind 
all  these  causes,  however,  was  jthe  true  and 
overmastering  cause,  namely,  that  sudden 
creation  of  wealth  for  which  the  nineteenth 
century  is  noted,  the  rise  all  over  the  world 
of  new  and  uneducated  classes.  We  came 
into  being  as  a  part  of  that  world  movement 
which  has  perceptibly  retarded  culture,  even 
in  Europe.  How,  then,  could  we  in  America 
hope  to  resist  it  ?  Whether  this  movement  is 
the  result  of  democratic  ideas,  or  of  mechani- 
16 


LEARNING 

cal  inventions,  or  of  scientific  discovery,  no 
one  can  say.  The  elements  that  go  to  make 
up  the  movement  cannot  be  unraveled.  We 
only  know  that_jhe  world  ha,s 


_ 

old  order  has  vanished  with  all  its  charm, 
with  all  its  experience,  with  all  its  refinement. 
In  its  place  we  have  a  crude  world,  indifferent 
to  everything  except  physical  well-being. 
In  the  place  of  the  fine  arts  and  the  crafts  we 
have  business  and  science. 

Business  is,  of  course,  devoted  to  the 
increase  of  physical  well-being;  but  what  is 
Science  ?  Now,  m^  one  _se.nse,  science  is  any 
thing  that  me  scientific  men  of  the  moment 
happen  to  be  studying.  In  one  decade,  science 
means  the  discussion  of  spontaneous  gener 
ation,  or  spontaneous  variation,  in  the  next 
of  plasm,  in  the  next  of  germs,  or  of  electrodes. 
Whatever  the  scientific  world  takes  up  as  a 
study  becomes  "  science."  It  is  impossible 
to  deny  the  truth  of  this  rather  self  -destructive 
definition,  jji  a  more  serious  sense,  however, 
science  is  the  whole  body  of  organized  Jmowl- 
edgepanH  a  distinction  is  sometim£S-_made 
between^^pure77  science  nnri  appKH  " 
science;  the  first  being  concerned  solely  .with 
the  ascertainment  of  truth,  the  second,  with 
practical  matters. 

In  these  higher  regions,  in  which  science  is 
synonymous  with  the  search  for  truth,  science 
partakes  of  the  nature  of  religion.     It  purifies 
2  17 


LEARNING 

its  votaries;  it  speaks  to  them  in  cryptic 
language,  revealing  certain  exalted  realities 
not  unrelated  to  the  realities  of  music,  or  of 
poetry  and  religion.  The  men  through  whom 
this  enthusiasm  for  pure  science  passes  are 
surely,  each  in  his  degree,  transmitters  of 
heroic  influence;  and,  in  their  own  way,  they 
form  a  kind  of  priesthood.  It  must  be  con 
fessed,  too,  that  this  priesthood  is  peculiarly 
the  product  of  the  nineteenth  century. 

The  Brotherhood  of  Science  is  a  new  order, 
a  new  Dispensation.  It  would  seem  to  me 
impossible  to  divide  one's  feeling  toward 
science  according  to  the  divisions  "pure" 
and  "applied";  because  many  men  in  whom 
the  tide  of  true  enthusiasm  runs  the  strongest 
deal  in  applied  science,  as,  for  instance,  sur 
geons,  bacteriologists,  etc.  Nor  ought  we  to 
forget  those  great  men  of  science  who  have  an 
attitude  of  sympathy  toward  all  human  ex 
cellence,  and  a  reverence  for  things  which 
cannot  be  approached  through  science.  Such 
men  resemble  those  saints  who  have  also, 
incidentally,  been  kings  and  popes.  Their 
personal  magnitude  obliterates  our  interest 
in  their  position  in  the  hierarchy.  We  think 
of  them  as  men,  not  as  popes,  kings  or  scien 
tists.  In  the  end  we  must  admit  that  there 
are  as  many  kinds  of  science  as  there  are  of 
men  engaged  in  scientific  pursuits.  The 
word  science  legitimately  means  an  immense 
18 


LEARNING 

variety  of  things,  loosely  connected  together, 
some  of  them  deserving  of  strong  reprobation. 
I  shall  use  the  term  with  such  accuracy  as  I 
am  able  to  command,  and  leave  it  to  the 
candid  reader  to  make  allowance  for  whatever 
injustice  this  course  may  entail. 

To  begin  with,  we  must  find  fault  with 
the  Brotherhood  of  Science  on  much  the  same 
ground  that  we  fought  the  old  religions, 
upon  grounds  of  tyranny  and  narrowness, 
of  dogmatism  and  presumption.  In  the  next 
place,  it  is  evident  that,  in  so  far  as  science  is 
not  hallowed  by  the  spirit  of  religion,  it  is  a 
mere  extension  of  business.  It  is  the  essence 
of  world-business,  race-business,  cosmic-busi 
ness.  It  saves  time,  saves  lives,  and  dominates 
the  air  and  the  sea;  but  all  these  things  may 
be  accomplished,  for  ought  we  know,  in  the 
course  of  the  extinction  of  the  better  nature  of 
mankind.  Science  is  not  directly  interested  in 
the  expression  of  spiritual  truth;  her  notation 
cannot  include  anything  so  fluctuating,  so 
indeterminate,  as  the  language  of  feeling. 
Science  neither  sings  nor  jokes;  neither  prays 
nor  rejoices;  neither  loves  nor  hates.  This 
is  not  her  fault;  but  her  limitation.  Her 
fault  is  that,  as  a  rule,  she  respects  only  her 
own  language  and  puts  trust  only  in  what 
is  in  her  own  shop  window. 

I  deprecate  the  contempt  which  science  ex 
presses  for  anything  that  does  not  happen  to 


LEARNING 

be  called  science.  Imperial  and  haughty 
science  proclaims  its  occupancy  of  the  whole 
province  of  human  thought;  yet,  as  a  matter 
of  fact,  science  deals  in  a  language  of  its  own, 
in  a  set  of  formulae  and  conceptions  which 
cannot  cover  the  most  important  interests  of 
humanity.  It  does  not  understand  the  value 
of  the  fine  arts  and  is  always  at  loggerheads 
with  philosophy.  Is  it  not  clear  that  science, 
in  order  to  make  good  her  claim  to  univer 
sality,  must  adopt  a  conception  of  her  own 
function  that  shall  leave  to  the  fine  arts  and 
to  religion  their  languages  ?  She  cannot  hope 
to  compete  with  these  languages,  nor  to  trans 
late  or  expound  them.  She  must  accept  them. 
At  present  she  tramples  upon  them. 
V  There  are,  then,  in  the  modern  world  these 
two  influences  which  are  hostile  to  education, — 
the  influence  of  business  and  the  influence  of 
uninspired  science.  In  Europe  these  in 
fluences  are  qualified  by  the  vigor  of  the  old 
learning.  In  America  they  dominate  remorse 
lessly,  and  make  the  path  of  education  doubly 
hard.  Consider  how  they  meet  us  in  ordinary 
social  life.  We  have  ajl_heajd  men -bemoan 
the  time  they  have  spent  over  Latin  and 
Greek  on  the  ground  that  these  studies  did  not 
fit  them  for  business, — as  if  a  thing  must  be 
worthless  if  it  can  be  neither  eaten  nor  drunk. 
It  is  hard  to  explain  the  value  of  education 
to  men  who  have  forgotten  the  meaning  of 
20 


LEARNING 

education:  its  symbols  convey  nothing  to 
them. 

The  situation  is  very  similar  in  dealing 
with  scientific  men, — at  least  with  that  large 
class  of  them  who  have  little  learning  and 
no  religion,  and  who  are  thus  obliged  to  use 
the  formulae  of  modern  science  as  their  only 
vehicle  of  thought.  These  men  regard  human 
ity  as  something  which  started  up  in  Darwin's 
time.  They  do  not  listen  when  the  humani 
ties  are  mentioned;  and  if  they  did  they  would 
not  understand.  When  Darwin  confessed 
that  poetry  had  no  meaning  for  him,  and 
that  nothing  significant  was  left  to  him  in 
the  whole  artistic  life  of  the  past,  he  did 
not  know  how  many  of  his  brethren  his  words 
were  destined  to  describe. 

We  can  forgive  the  business  man  for  the  loss 
of  his  birthright:  he  knows  no  better.  But 
we  have  it  against  a  scientist  if  he  under 
values  education.  Surely,  the  Latin  classics 
are  as  valuable  a  deposit  as  the  crustacean 
fossils,  or  the  implements  of  the  Stone  Age. 
When  science  shall  have  assumed  her  true 
relation  to  the  field  of  human  culture  we  shall 
all  be  happier.  To-day  science  knows  that 
the  silkworm  must  be  fed  on  the  leaves  of  the 
mulberry  tree,  but  does  not  know  that  the 
soul  of  man  must  be  fed  on  the  Bible  and  the 
Greek  classics.  Science  knows  that  a  queen 
bee  can  be  produced  by  care  and  feeding,  but 
21 


LEARNING 

does  not  as  yet  know  that  every  man  who 
has  had  a  little  Greek  and  Latin  in  his  youth 
belongs  to  a  different  species  from  the  ignor 
ant  man.  No  matter  how  little  it  may  have 
been,  it  reclassifies  him.  There  is  more  kin 
ship  between  that  man  and  a  great  scholar 
than  there  is  between  the  same  man  and  some 
one  who  has  had  no  classics  at  all:  he  breathes 
from  a  different  part  of  his  anatomy.  Drop 
the  classics  from  education  ?  Ask  rather,  Why 
not  drop  education?  For  the  classics  are 
education.  We  cannot  draw  a  line  and  say, 
1  Here  we  start/  The  facts  are  the  other  way. 
We  started  long  ago,  and  our  very  life  depends 
upon  keeping  alive  all  that  we  have  thought 
and  felt  during  our  history.  If  the  continuity 
is  taken  from  us,  we  shall  relapse. 

When  we  discover  that  these  two  tremendous 
interests — business  and  commerical  science 
have  arisen  in  the  modern  world  and  are 
muffling  the  voice  of  man,  we  tremble  for  the 
future.  If  these  giants  shall  continue  their 
subjugation  of  the  gods,  the  whole  race,  we 
fear,  way  relapse  into  dumbness.  By  good 
fortune,  however,  there  are  other  powers  at 
work.  The  race  is  emotionally  too  rich  and 
too  much  attached  to  the  past  to  allow  its 
faculties  to  be  lost  through  disuse.  New 
and  spontaneous  crops  will  soon  be  growing 
upon  the  mould  of  our  own  stubbly,  thistle- 
bearing  epoch. 

22 


LEARNING 

In  the  meantime  we  in  America  must  do  the 
best  we  can.  It  is  no  secret  that  our  stand 
ards  of  education  are  below  those  of  Europe. 
Our  art,  our  historical  knowledge,  our  music 
and  general  conversation,  show  a  stiffness 
and  lack  of  exuberance — a  lack  of  vitality  I 
and  of  unconscious  force — the  faults  of 
beginners  in  all  walks  of  life.  During  the 
last  twenty-five  years  much  improvement 
has  been  made  in  those  branches  of  cultiva 
tion  which  depend  directly  upon  wealth. 
Since  the  Civil  War  there  seems  to  have  been  a 
decline  in  the  higher  literature,  accompanied 
by  an  advance  in  the  plastic  arts.  And  more 
recently  still  there  has  been  a  literary  reawaken 
ing,  perhaps  not  of  the  most  important  kind, 
yet  signifying  a  new  era.  If  I  may  employ  an 
obvious  simile,  I  would  liken  America  to  a 
just-grown  man  of  good  impulses  who  has 
lacked  early  advantages.  He  feels  that  culti 
vation  belongs  to  him;  and  yet  he  cannot  catch 
it  nor  hold  it.  He  feels  the  impulse  of  expres 
sion,  and  yet  he  can  neither  read  nor  write. 
He  feels  that  he  is  fitted  for  general  society, 
and  yet  he  has  no  current  ideas  or  conversation. 
And,  of  course — I  say  it  with  regret,  but  it  is  a 
part  of  the  situation — of  course  he  is  heady 
and  proud  of  himself. 

What  do  we  all  desire  for  this  ingenuous 
youth  on  whom  the  postponed  expectation  of 
the  world,  as  Emerson  called  it,  has  waited  so 
23 


LEARNING 

long?  We  desire  only  to  furnish  him  with 
true  advantages.  Let  us  take  a  simultaneous 
survey  of  the  two  extremities  of  the  youth's 
education,  namely,  of  nursery  training  and 
of  the  higher  education.  The  two  are  more 
intimately  dependent  upon  each  other  than 
is  generally  suspected.  With  regard  to  the 
nursery,  early  advantages  are  the  key  to 
education.  The  focus  of  all  cultivation  is  the 
fireside.  Learning  is  a  stove  plant  that  lives 
in  the  cottage  and  thrives  during  the  long 
winter  in  domestic  warmth.  Unless  it  be 
borne  into  children  in  their  earliest  years, 
f  there  is  little  hope  for  it.  The  whole  future 
of  civilization  depends  upon  what  is  read 
to  children  before  they  can  read  to  themselves. 
The  world  is  powerless  to  reconvey  itself 
through  any  mind  that  it  has  not  lived  in  from 
the  beginning, — so  hard  is  the  language  of 
symbols,  whether  in  music,  or  in  poetry,  or  in 
painting.  The  art  must  expand  with  the 
heart,  as  a  hot  rod  of  glass  is  touched  by 
the  gold-leaf,  and  is  afterwards  blown  into 
dusty  stars  and  rainbows  of  mantling  irradia 
tion.  If  the  glass  expand  before  it  has  been 
\  touched  by  the  metal,  there  is  no  means  of 
ever  getting  the  metal  into  it. 

The  age  of  machinery  has  peopled  this 
continent  with  promoters  and  millionaires,  and 
the  work  of  a  thousand  years  has  been  done  in 
a  century.  The  thing  has,  however,  been 

24 


LEARNING 

accomplished  at  some  cost.  An  ignorant 
man  makes  a  fortune  and  demands  the  higher 
education  for  his  children.  But  it  is  too  late: 
he  should  have  given  it  to  them  when  he  was  in 
his  shirt  sleeves.  All  that  they  are  able  to 
receive  now  is  something  very  different  from 
education.  In  receiving  it  they  drag  down 
the  old  standards.  School  and  college  are 
filled  with  illiterates.  The  whole  land  must 
patiently  wait  till  Learning  has  warmed  back 
to  life  her  chilled  and  starved  descendants. 
Perhaps  the  child  or  grandchild  of  the  fortune- 
builder  will  teach  the  children  on  his  knee  what 
he  himself  learned  too  late  in  life  to  stead  him 
much. 

Hunger  and  thirst  for  learning  is  a  passion 
that  comes,  as  it  were,  out  of  the  ground;  now 
in  an  age  of  wealth,  now  in  an  age  of  poverty. 
Young  men  are  born  whom  nothing  will 
satisfy  except  the  arts  and  the  sciences.  They 
seek  out  some  scholar  at  a  university  and  aim 
at  him  from  boyhood.  They  persuade 
their  parents  to  send  them  to  college.  They 
are  bored  and  fatigued  by  everything  that  life 
offers  except  this  thing.  Now,  society  does 
not  create  this  hunger.  All  that  society  can 
do  is  to  provide  nourishment  of  the  right 
kind,  good  instruction,  true  learning,  the 
best  scholarship  which  history  has  left  behind. 
I  believe  that  to-day  there  is  a  spirit  of  learn 
ing  abroad  in  America — here  and  there,  in  the 

25 


LEARNING 

young — the  old  insatiable  passion.  I  feel  as 
if  men  were  arising — most  of  them  still  handi 
capped  by  the  lack  of  early  training — to  whom 
life  has  no  meaning  except  as  a  search  for 
truth.  This  exalted  famine  of  the  young 
scholar  is  the  hope  of  the  world.  It  is  reli 
gion  and  art  and  science  in  the  chrysalis.  The 
thing  which  society  must  beware  of  doing  is  of 
interposing  between  the  young  learner  and  his 
natural  food  some  mechanical  product  or 
patent  food  of  its  own.  Good  culture  means 
the  whole  of  culture  in  its  original  sources;  bad 
culture  is  any  substitute  for  this. 

Let  us  now  examine  the  higher  departments 
of  education,  the  university,  the  graduate 
school,  the  museum, — the  learned  world  in 
America.  There  is  one  function  of  learned 
men  which  is  the  same  in  every  age,  namely,  the 
production  of  text-books.  Learned  men  shed 
text-books  as  the  oak  sheds  acorns,  and  by 
their  fruits  ye  shall  know  them.  Open  almost 
any  primary  text-book  or  school  book  in 
America,  and  you  will,  on  almost  every  page  of 
it,  find  inelegancies  of  usage,  roughnesses, 
inaccuracies,  and  occasional  errors  of  grammar. 
The  book  has  been  written  by  an  incompetent 
hand.  Now,  what  has  the  writer  lacked  ?  Is 
it  grammar  ?  Is  it  acquaintance  with  English 
literature,  with  good  models,  with  the  Bible, 
with  history  ?  It  is  all  these  things,  and  more 
than  all.  No  school-room  teaching  can  make 
26 


LEARNING 

a  man  write  good  English.  No  school  teach 
ing  ever  made  an  educated  man,  or  a  man  who 
could  write  a  good  primary  text-book.  It 
requires  a  home  of  early  culture,  supplemented 
by  the  whole  curriculum  of  scholarship  and  of 
university  training,  Nothing  else  but  this 
great  engine  will  produce  that  little  book. 

The  same  conditions  prevail  in  music.  If 
you  employ  the  nearest  excellent  young  lady 
music  teacher  to  teach  your  boys  to  play  the 
piano,  she  will  bring  into  the  house  certain 
child's  music  written  by  American  composers, 
in  which  the  rules  of  harmony  are  violated 
and  of  which  the  sentiment  is  vulgar.  The 
books  have  been  written  by  incompetent  people. 
There  is  a  demand  for  such  books  and  they  are 
produced.  They  are  the  best  the  times 
afford:  let  us  be  glad  that  they  exist  at  all  and 
that  they  are  no  worse.  But  note  this:  it  will 
require  the  whole  musical  impulse  of  the  age, 
from  the  oratorio  society  and  the  musical 
college  down  to  the  street  organ,  to  correct 
the  grammar  of  that  child's  music  book.  Ten 
or  twenty  years  from  now  a  like  book  will 
perhaps  be  brought  into  your  home,  filled 
with  better  harmony  and  with  truer  musical 
feeling;  and  the  change  will  have  been  wrought 
through  the  influence  of  Sebastian  Bach,  of 
Beethoven, — of  the  masters  of  music. 

It  is  the  same  with  all  things.  The  higher 
culture  must  hang  over  the  cradle,  over  the 
27 


LEARNING 

professional  school,  over  the  community. 
If  you  read  the  lives  of  the  painters  of  Italy 
or  of  the  musicians  of  Germany,  you  will  find 
that,  no  matter  where  a  child  of  genius  was 
born,  there  was  always  an  educated  man  to 
be  found  in  the  nearest  village — a  priest  or  a 
schoolmaster — who  gave  the  child  the  rudi 
ments  himself,  and  became  the  means  of 
sending  him  to  the  university.  Without  this 
indigent  scholar,  where  would  have  been  the 
great  master  ? 

It  is  familiarity  with  greatness  that  we  need — 
an  early  and  first-hand  acquaintance  with  the 
thinkers  of  the  world,  whether  their  mode  of 
thought  was  music  or  marble  or  canvas  or 
language.  Their  meaning  is  not  easy  to  come 
at,  but  in  so  far  as  it  reaches  us  it  will  transform 
us.  A  strange  thing  has  occurred  in  America. 
I  am  not  sure  that  it  has  ever  occurred  before. 
The  teachers  wish  to  make  learning  easy. 
They  desire  to  prepare  and  peptonize  and 
sweeten  the  food.  Their  little  books  are  soft 
biscuit  for  weak  teeth,  easy  reading  on  great 
subjects;  but  these  books  are  filled  with  a 
pervading  error:  they  contain  a  subtle  per 
version  of  education. 

Learning  is  not  easy,  but  hard;  culture  is 
severe.  The  steps  to  Parnassus  are  steep  and 
terribly  arduous.  This  truth  is  often  forgotten 
among  us;  and  yet  there  are  fields  of  work  in 
which  it  is  not  forgotten,  and  in  such  fields  art 
28 


LEARNING 

springs  up.  Let  us  remember  the  accomplish 
ments  of  our  country.  The  art  in  which  we 
now  most  excel  is  architecture.  America  has 
in  it  many  beautiful  buildings  and  some 
learned  architects.  And  how  has  this  come 
about?  Through  severe  and  conscientious 
study  of  the  monuments  of  art,  through  hum 
ble,  old-fashioned  training.  The  architects 
have  had  firstrate  text-books,  generally  written 
by  Europeans,  the  non-peptonized,  gritty,  ser 
ious  language  of  masters  in  the  craft.  Our 
painters  have  done  something  of  the  same 
sort.  They  have  gone  to  Europe,  and  are 
conversant  with  what  is  being  done  in  Europe. 
If  they  are  developing  their  art  here,  they  do 
it  not  ignorantly,  but  with  experience,  with 
consciousness  of  the  past. 

I  do  not  recommend  subserviency  to  Europe, 
but  subserviency  to  intellect.  Recourse  to 
Europe  we  must  have :  our  scholars  must  absorb 
Europe  without  themselves  becoming  absorbed. 
It  is  a  curious  thing  that  the  American  who 
comes  in  contact  with  the  old  world  exhibits 
two  opposite  faults:  he  is  often  toa  much 
impressed  and  loses  stamina,  or  he  is  too 
little  impressed  and  remains  a  barbarian. 
Contact  with  the  past  and  hard  work  are  the 
cure  for  both  tendencies.  Europe  is  merely  an 
incidental  factor  in  the  problem  of  our  educa 
tion,  and  this  is  very  well  shown  in  our  conduct 
of  our  law  schools.  The  Socratic  method  of 
29 


LEARNING 

instruction  in  law  schools  was  first  introduced 
at  Harvard,  and  since  then  it  has  spread  to 
many  parts  of  the  world.  This  is  undoubtedly 
one  of  our  best  achievements  in  scholarship; 
and  Europe  had,  so  far  as  I  know,  no  hand  in 
it.  The  method  consists  in  the  viva  voce  dis 
cussion  of  leading  cases,  text -books  being  used 
merely  as  an  auxiliary:  the  student  thus  attacks 
the  sources  themselves.  Here  we  have  Ameri 
can  scholarship  at  its  best,  and  it  is  precisely 
the  same  thing  as  the  European  article:  it  is 
simply  scholarship. 

If  we  can  exhibit  this  spirit  in  one  branch  of 
learning,  why  not  in  all?  The  Promethean 
fire  is  one  single  element.  A  spark  of  this  fire 
is  all  that  is  needed  to  kindle  this  flame.  The 
glance  of  a  child  of  genius  at  an  Etruscan 
vase  leaves  the  child  a  new  being.  That  is 
why  museums  exist:  not  only  for  the  million 
who  get  something  from  them,  but  for  the  one 
young  person  of  intelligence  to  whom  they  mean 
everything. 

Our  American  universities  exhibit  very 
vividly  all  the  signs  of  retardation  in  culture, 
which  are  traceable  in  other  parts  of  our 
social  life.  A  university  is  always  a  strong 
hold  of  the  past,  and  is  therefore  one  of  the 
last  places  to  be  captured  by  new  influence. 
Commerce  has  been  our  ruler  for  many  years; 
and  yet  it  is  only  quite  recently  that  the 
philosophy  of  commerce  can  b§  seen.  in.  our 
30 


LEARNING 

colleges.  The  business  man  is  not  a  monster; 
but  he  is  a  person  who  desires  to  advance 
his  own  interests.  This  is  his  occupation 
and,  as  it  were,  his  religion.  The  advance 
ment  of  material  interests  constitutes  civiliza 
tion  to  him.  He  unconsciously  infuses  the 
ideas  and  methods  of  business  into  anything 
that  he  touches.  It  has  thus  come  about  in 
America  that  our  universities  are  beginning 
to  be  run  as  business  colleges.  They  adver 
tise,  they  compete  with  each  other,  they 
pretend  to  give  good  value  to  their  customers. 
They  desire  to  increase  their  trade,  they  of 
fer  social  advantages  and  business  openings 
to  their  patrons.  In  some  cases  they  boldly 
conduct  intelligence  offices,  and  guarantee 
that  no  hard  work  done  by  the  student  shall 
be  done  in  vain:  a  record  of  work  is  kept 
during  the  student's  college  life,  and  the 
college  undertakes  to  furnish  him  at  any  time 
thereafter  with  references  and  a  character 
which  shall  help  him  in  the  struggle  for  life. 

This  miscarriage  of  education  has  been 
developed  and  is  being  conducted  by  some  of 
our  greatest  educators,  through  a  perfectly 
unconscious  adaptation  of  their  own  souls 
to  the  spirit  of  the  age.  The  underlying 
philosophy  of  these  men  might  be  stated  as 
follows :  "  There  is  nothing  in  life  nobler  than 
for  a  man  to  improve  his  condition  and  the 
condition  of  his  children.  Learning  is  a 


LEARNING 

means  to  this  end."  Such  is  the  current 
American  conception  of  education.  How 
far  we  have  departed  from  the  idea  of  educa 
tion  as  a  search  for  truth,  or  as  the  vehicle  of 
spiritual  expression,  may  be  seen  herein. 
The  change  of  creeds  has  come  about  inno 
cently,  and  the  consequences  involved  in  it 
are,  as  yet,  perceived  by  hardly  anyone.  The 
scepticism  inherent  in  the  new  creed  is  con 
cealed  by  its  benevolence.  You  wish  to  help 
the  American  youth.  This  unfortunate,  be- 
nighted,  ignorant  boy,  who  has  from  his 
cradle  heard  of  nothing  but  business  success 
as  the  one  goal  of  all  human  effort,  turns  to 
you  for  instruction.  He  comes  to  you  in  a 
trusting  spirit,  with  reverence  in  his  heart, 
and  you  answer  his  hope  in  this  wise:  'Busi 
ness  and  social  success  are  the  best  things 
that  life  affords.  Come  to  us,  my  dear 
fellow,  and  we  will  help  you  toward  them.' 
Your  son  asks  you  for  bread  and  you  give  him 
a  stone,  for  fish  and  you  give  him  a  serpent. 
It  would  have  been  better  for  that  boy  if 
he  had  never  come  to  your  college,  for  in  that 
case  he  might  have  retained  a  belief  that 
somewhere  in  the  world  there  existed  ideas, 
art,  enthusiasm,  unselfishness,  inspiring  activity. 
In  so  far  as  our  universities  have  been 
turning  into  business  agencies,  they  have 
naturally  lost  their  imaginative  importance. 
Our  professors  seem  to  be  of  little  more  con- 

32 


LEARNING 

sequence  in  the  community  that  the  depart 
ment  managers  of  other  large  shops.  If 
learning  is  a  useful  commodity  which  is  to 
be  distributed  for  the  personal  advantage  of 
the  recipients,  it  is  a  thing  to  be  paid  for 
rather  than  to  be  worshiped.  To  be  sure, 
the  whole  of  past  history  cannot  be  swept 
away  in  a  day,  and  we  have  not  wholly  dis 
carded  a  certain  conventional  and  rhetorical 
reverence  for  learning.  A  dash  and  varnish 
of  education  are  thought  to  be  desirable, — 
the  wash  that  is  growing  every  year  more 
thin. 

Now,  the  truth  is  that  the  higher  education 
does  not  advance  a  man's  personal  interests 
except  under  special  circumstances.  What 
it  gives  a  man  is  the  power  of  expression; 
but  the  ability  to  express  himself  has  kept 
many  a  man  poor.  Let  no  one  imagine  that 
society  is  likely  to  reward  him  for  self-expres 
sion  in  any  walk  of  life.  He  is  much  more 
likely  to  be  punished  for  it.  The  question 
of  a  man's  success  in  life  depends  upon 
society  at  large.  The  more  highly  an  age  is 
educated,  the  more  highly  it  rewards  educa 
tion  in  the  individual.  In  an  age  of  indif 
ference  to  learning,  the  educated  man  is  at  a 
disadvantage.  Thus  the  thesis  that  educa 
tion  advances  self-interest — that  thesis  upon 
which  many  of  our  colleges  are  now  being 
conducted— is  substantially  false.  The  little  , 

3  33 


LEARNING 

scraps  and  snatches  of  true  education  which 
a  man  now  gets  at  college  often  embarrass 
his  career.  Our  people  are  finding  this  out 
year  by  year,  and  as  they  do  so,  they  natur 
ally  throw  the  true  conception  of  the  higher 
education  overboard.  If  education  is  to 
break  down  as  a  commercial  asset,  what 
excuse  have  they  for  retaining  it  at  all  ?  They 
will  force  the  colleges  to  live  up  to  the  adver 
tisements  and  to  furnish  the  kind  of  education 
that  pays  its  way.  It  is  clear  that  if  the 
colleges  persist  in  the  utilitarian  view,  the 
higher  learning  will  disappear.  It  has  been 
disappearing  very  rapidly,  and  can  be  restored 
only  through  the  birth  of  a  new  spirit  and 
of  a  new  philosophic  attitude  in  our  university 
life. 

There  are  ages  when  the  scholar  receives 
recognition  during  his  lifetime  and  when  the 
paths  which  lead  to  his  lecture-room  are 
filled  with  men  drawn  there  by  his  fame. 
This  situation  arises  in  any  epoch  when 
human  intellect  surges  up  and  asserts  itself 
against  tyranny  and  ignorance.  In  the  past 
the  tyrannies  have  been  political  tyrannies, 
and  these  have  become  well  understood 
through  the  struggles  of  intellect  in  the  past; 
but  the  present  commercial  tyranny  is  a  new 
thing  and  as  yet  little  understood.  It  lies  like 
a  heavy  fog  of  intellectual  depression  over  the 
whole  kingdom  of  Mammon,  and  is  fed  by 

34 


LEARNING 

the  smoke  from  a  million  factories.  The 
artist  works  in  it,  the  thinker  thinks  in  it. 
Even  the  saint  is  born  in  it.  The  rain  of 
ashes  from  the  nineteenth-century  Vesuvius 
of  business  seems  to  be  burying  all  our 
landscape. 

And  yet  this  is  not  true.  We  shall  emerge: 
even  we  who  are  in  America  and  suffer  most. 
The  important  points  to  be  watched  are 
our  university  class-rooms.  If  our  colleges 
will  but  allow  something  unselfish,  something 
that  is  true  for  its  own  sake,  something  that 
is  part  of  the  history  of  the  human  heart  and 
intellect,  to  live  in  their  class-rooms,  the  boys 
will  find  their  way  to  it.  The  museum  holds 
the  precious  urn,  to  preserve  it.  The  univer 
sity,  in  like  manner,  stands  to  house  the 
alphabets  of  civilization — the  historic  instru 
ments  and  agencies  of  intellect.  They  are 
all  akin  to  each  other  as  the  very  name  and 
function  of  the  place  imply.  The  presidents 
and  professors  who  sit  beside  the  fountains 
of  knowledge  bear  different  labels  and  teach 
subjects  that  are  called  by  various  names. 
But  the  thing  which  carries  the  label  is  no 
more  than  the  shell.  The  life  you  cannot 
label;  and  it  is  to  foster  this  life  that  univer 
sities  exist.  Enthusiasm  comes  out  of  the 
world  and  goes  into  the  university.  Toward 
this  point  flow  the  currents  of  new  talent  that 
bubble  up  in  society:  here  is  the  meeting-place 

35 


LEARNING 

of  mind.  All  that  a  university  does  is  to 
give  the  poppy-seed  to  the  soil,  the  oil  to  the 
lamp,  the  gold  to  the  rod  of  glass  before 
it  cools.  A  university  brings  the  spirit  in 
touch  with  its  own  language,  that  language 
through  which  it  has  spoken  in  former  days 
and  through  which  alone  it  shall  speak  again. 


PROFESSORIAL  ETHICS 


PROFESSORIAL  ETHICS. 

WHEN  I  was  at  a  university  as  an  undergradu 
ate — I  will  not  say  how  many  years  ago — I 
received  one  morning  a  visit  from  a  friend  who 
was  an  upper  classman;  for,  as  I  remember  it, 
I  was  a  freshman  at  the  time.  My  friend 
brought  a  petition,  and  wished  to  interest  me  in 
the  case  of  a  tutor  or  assistant  professor,  a 
great  favorite  with  the  college  boys,  who  was 
about  to  be  summarily  dismissed.  There 
were,  to  be  sure,  vague  charges  against  him  of 
incompetence  and  insubordination;  but  of  the 
basis  of  these  charges  his  partisans  knew  little. 
They  only  felt  that  one  of  the  bright  spots  in 
undergraduate  life  surrounded  this  same  tutor; 
they  liked  him  and  they  valued  his  teaching.  I 
remember  no  more  about  this  episode,  nor  do  I 
even  remember  whether  I  signed  the  petition 
or  not.  The  only  thing  I  very  clearly  recall  is 
the  outcome:  the  tutor  was  dismissed. 

Twice  or  thrice  again  during  my  under 
graduate  life,  did  the  same  thing  happen — a 
flurry  among  the  students,  a  remonstrance 
much  too  late,  against  a  deed  of  apparent  in 
justice,  a  cry  in  the  night,  and  then  silence, 

39 


PROFESSORIAL   ETHICS 

Now,  had  I  known  more  about  the  world,  I 
should  have  understood  that  these  nocturnal 
disturbances  were  signs  of  the  times,  that  what 
we  had  heard  in  all  these  cases  was  the  opera 
tion  of  the  guillotine  which  exists  in  every 
American  institution  of  learning,  and  runs  fast 
or  slow  according  to  the  progress  of  the  times. 
The  thing  that  a  little  astonished  the  under 
graduate  at  the  time  was  that  in  almost  every 
case  of  summary  decapitation  the  victim  was 
an  educated  gentleman.  And  this  was  not 
because  no  other  kind  of  man  could  be  found 
in  the  faculty.  It  seemed  as  if  some  whimsical 
fatality  hung  over  the  professorial  career  of  any 
ingenuous  gentleman  who  was  by  nature  a 
scholar  of  the  charming,  old-fashioned  kind. 

Youth  grieves  not  long  over  mysterious  in 
justice,  and  it  never  occurred  to  me  till  many 
years  afterward  that  there  was  any  logical  con 
nection  between  one  and  another  of  all  these 
judicial  murders  which  used  to  claim  a  passing 
tear  from  the  undergraduate  at  Harvard.  It 
is  only  since  giving  some  thought  to  recent 
educational  conditions  in  America,  that  I  have 
understood  what  was  then  happening,  and  why 
it  was  that  a  scholar  could  hardly  live  in  an 
American  University. 

In  America,  society  has  been  reorganized 

since  1870;  the  old  universities  have  been  totally 

changed  and  many  new  ones  founded.     The 

money  to  do  this  has  come  from  the  business 

40 


PROFESSORIAL   ETHICS 

world.  The  men  chosen  to  do  the  work  have 
been  chosen  by  the  business  world.  Of  a  truth, 
it  must  needs  be  that  offenses  come;  but  woe 
be  unto  him  through  whom  the  offense  cometh. 
As  the  Boss  has  been  the  tool  of  the  business 
man  in  politics,  so  the  College  president  has 
been  his  agent  in  education.  The  colleges 
during  this  epoch  have  each  had  a  ''policy " 
and  a  directorate.  They  have  been  manned 
and  commissioned  for  a  certain  kind  of  service, 
as  you  might  man  a  fishing-smack  to  catch 
herring.  There  has  been  so  much  necessary 
business — the  business  of  expanding  and  plan 
ning,  of  adapting  and  remodeling — that  there 
has  been  no  time  for  education.  Some  big 
deal  has  always  been  pending  in  each  college 
— some  consolidation  of  departments,  some 
annexation  of  a  new  world — something  so 
momentous  as  to  make  private  opinion  a  nui 
sance.  In  this  regard  the  colleges  have  re 
sembled  everything  else  in  America.  The 
colleges  have  simply  not  been  different  from 
the  rest  of  American  life.  Let  a  man  express 
an  opinion  at  a  party  caucus,  or  at  a  railroad 
directors'  meeting,  or  at  a  college  faculty  meet 
ing,  and  he  will  find  that  he  is  speaking 
against  a  predetermined  force.  What  shall 
we  do  with  such  a  fellow  ?  Well,  if  he  is  old 
and  distinguished,  you  may  suffer  him  to  have 
his  say,  and  then  override  him.  But  if  he  is 
young,  energetic,  and  likely  to  give  more 


PROFESSORIAL   ETHICS 

trouble,  you  must  eject  him  with  as  little  fuss 
as  the  circumstances  will  permit. 

The  educated  man  has  been  the  grain  of 
sand  in  the  college  machine.  He  has  had  a 
horizon  of  what  "ought  to  be,"  and  he  could 
not  help  putting  in  a  word  and  an  idea  in  the 
wrong  place;  and  so  he  was  thrown  out  of  edu 
cation  in  America  exactly  as  he  was  thrown 
out  of  politics  in  America.  I  am  here  speak 
ing  about  the  great  general  trend  of  influences 
since  1870,  influences  which  have  been  checked 
in  recent  years,  checked  in  politics,  checked  in 
education,  but  which  it  is  necessary  to  under 
stand  if  we  would  understand  present  condi 
tions  in  education.  The  men  who,  during  this 
era,  have  been  chosen  to  become  college  presi 
dents  have,  as  a  rule,  begun  life  with  the  ambi 
tion  of  scholars;  but  their  talents  for  affairs 
have  been  developed  at  the  expense  of  their 
taste  for  learning,  and  they  have  become  hard 
men.  As  toward  their  faculties  they  have 
been  autocrats,  because  the  age  has  demanded 
autocracy  here;  as  toward  the  millionaire  they 
have  been  sycophants,  because  the  age  has 
demanded  sycophancy  here.  Meanwhile 
these  same  college  presidents  represent  learn 
ing  to  the  imagination  of  the  millionaire  and  to 
the  imagination  of  the  great  public.  The  ig 
norant  millionaire  must  trust  somebody;  and 
whom  he  trusts  he  rules.  Now  if  we  go  one 
step  further  in  the  reasoning,  and  discover  that 
42 


PROFESSORIAL   ETHICS 

the  millionaire  himself  has  a  somewhat  exag 
gerated  reverence  for  the  opinions  of  the  great 
public,  we  shall  see  that  this  whole  matter  is  a 
coil  of  influence  emanating  from  the  great  pub 
lic,  and  winding  up — and  generally  winding  up 
very  tight — about  the  necks  of  our  college  fac 
ulties  and  professional  scholars.  The  million 
aire  and  the  college  president  are  simply  mid 
dle  men,  who  transmit  the  pressure  from  the 
average  citizen  to  the  learned  classes.  What 
the  average  citizen  desires  to  have  done  in 
education  gets  itself  accomplished,  though  the 
process  should  involve  the  extinction  of  the 
race  of  educated  gentlemen.  The  problem  be 
fore  us  in  America  is  the  unwinding  of  this 
"knot  intrinsicate"  into  which  our  education 
has  become  tied,  the  unwinding  of  this  boa- 
constrictor  of  ignorant  public  opinion  which 
has  been  strangling  and,  tc  some  extent,  is  still 
strangling  our  scholars. 

I  have  no  categorical  solution  of  the  problem, 
nor  do  I,  to  tell  the  truth,  put  an  absolute  faith 
in  any  analysis  of  social  forces,  even  of  my  own. 
If  I  point  out  one  of  the  strands  in  the  knot  as 
the  best  strand  to  begin  work  on,  it  is  with  the 
consciousness  that  there  are  other  effectual 
ways  of  working,  other  ways  of  feeling  about 
the  matter  that  are  more  profound. 

The  natural  custodians  of  education  in  any 
age  are  the  learned  men  of  the  land,  including 
the  professors  and  schoolmasters.  Now  these 

43 


PROFESSORIAL   ETHICS 

men  have,  at  the  present  time,  in  America  no 
conception  of  their  responsibility.  They  are 
docile  under  the  rule  of  the  promoting  college 
president,  and  they  have  a  theory  of  their  own 
function  which  debars  them  from  militant 
activity.  The  average  professor  in  an  Ameri 
can  college  will  look  on  at  an  act  of  injustice 
done  to  a  brother  professor  by  their  college 
president,  with  the  same  unconcern  as  the  rab 
bit  who  is  not  attacked  watches  the  ferret  pur 
sue  his  brother  up  and  down  through  the  war 
ren,  to  predestinate  and  horrible  death.  We 
know,  of  course,  that  it  would  cost  the  non- 
attacked  rabbit  his  place  to  express  sympathy 
for  the  martyr;  and  the  non-attacked  is  poor, 
and  has  offspring,  and  hopes  of  advancement. 
The  non-attacked  rabbit  would,  of  course, 
become  a  suspect,  and  a  marked  man  the 
moment  he  lifted  up  his  voice  in  defense  of 
rabbit-rights.  Such  personal  sacrifice  seems 
to  be  the  price  paid  in  this  world  for  doing 
good  of  any  kind.  I  am  not,  however,  here 
raising  the  question  of  general  ethics;  I  refer 
to  the  philosophical  belief,  to  the  special 
theory  of  professorial  ethics,  which  forbids  a 
professor  to  protect  his  colleague.  I  invite 
controversy  on  this  subject;  for  I  should  like  to 
know  what  the  professors  of  the  country  have 
to  say  on  it.  It  seems  to  me  that  there  exists 
a  special  prohibitory  code,  which  prevents  the 
college  professor  from  using  his  reason  and 

44 


PROFESSORIAL  ETHICS 

his  pen  as  actively  as  he  ought  in  protecting 
himself,  in  pushing  his  interests,  and  in  en 
lightening  the  community  about  our  educa 
tional  abuses.  The  professor  in  America 
seems  to  think  that  self-respect  requires  silence 
and  discretion  on  his  part.  He  is  too  great  to 
descend  into  the  arena.  He  thinks  that  by 
nursing  this  gigantic  reverence  for  the  idea  of 
professordom,  such  reverence  will,  somehow,  be 
extended  all  over  society,  till  the  professor  be 
comes  a  creature  of  power,  of  public  notoriety, 
of  independent  reputation  as  he  is  in  Germany. 
In  the  meantime,  the  professor  is  trampled 
upon,  his  interests  are  ignored,  he  is  over 
worked  and  underpaid,  he  is  of  small  social 
consequence,  he  is  kept  at  menial  employments, 
and  the  leisure  to  do  good  work  is  denied  him. 
A  change  is  certainly  needed  in  all  of  these 
aspects  of  the  American  professor's  life.  My 
own  opinion  is  that  this  change  can  only  come 
about  through  the  enlightenment  of  the  great 
public.  The  public  must  be  appealed  to  by 
the  professor  himself  in  all  ways  and  upon  all 
occasions.  The  professor  must  teach  the  na 
tion  to  respect  learning  and  to  understand  the 
function  and  the  rights  of  the  learned  classes. 
He  must  do  this  through  a  willingness  to  speak 
and  to  fight  for  himself.  In  Germany  there  is 
a  great  public  of  highly  educated,  nay  of  deeply 
and  variously  learned  people,  whose  very  exist 
ence  secures  pay,  protection,  and  reverence  for 

45 


PROFESSORIAL   ETHICS 

the  scholar.    The  same  is  true  in  France, 
England,  and  Italy. 

It  is  the  public  that  protects  the  professor  in 
Europe.  The  public  alone  can  protect  the 
professor  in  America.  The  proof  of  this  is 
that  any  individual  learned  man  in  America 
who  becomes  known  to  the  public  through  his 
books  or  his  discoveries,  or  his  activity  in  any 
field  of  learning  or  research,  is  comparatively 
safe  from  the  guillotine.  His  position  has  at 
least  some  security,  his  word  some  authority. 
This  man  has  educated  the  public  that  trusts 
him,  and  he  can  now  protect  his  more  defense 
less  brethren,  if  he  will.  I  have  often  wondered, 
when  listening  to  the  sickening  tale  of  some 
brutality  done  by  a  practical  college  president 
to  a  young  instructor,  how  it  had  been  possible 
for  the  eminent  men  upon  the  faculty  to  sit 
through  the  operation  without  a  protest.  A 
word  from  any  one  of  them  would  have  stopped 
the  sacrifice,  and  protected  learning  from  the 
oppressor.  But  no,  these  eminent  men  har 
bored  ethical  conceptions  which  kept  them 
from  interfering  with  the  practical  running  of 
the  college.  Merciful  heavens !  who  is  to  run  a 
college  if  not  learned  men  ?  Our  colleges  have 
been  handled  by  men  whose  ideals  were  as 
remote  from  scholarship  as  the  ideals  of  the 
New  York  theatrical  managers  are  remote 
from  poetry.  In  the  meanwhile,  the  scholars 
have  been  dumb  and  reticent. 


PROFESSORIAL   ETHICS 

At  the  back  of  all  these  phenomena  we  have, 
as  I  have  said,  the  general  atmospheric  ig 
norance  of  the  great  public  in  America.  We 
are  so  used  to  this  public,  so  immersed  in 
it,  so  much  a  part  of  it  ourselves,  that  we  are 
hardly  able  to  gain  any  conception  of  what  that 
atmospheric  ignorance  is  like.  I  will  give  an 
illustration  which  would  perhaps  never  have 
occurred  to  my  mind  except  through  the 
accident  of  actual  experience.  If  you  desire 
a  clue  to  the  American  in  the  matter  of  the 
higher  education,  you  may  find  one  in  becom 
ing  a  school  trustee  in  any  country  district 
where  the  children  taught  are  the  children  of 
farmers.  The  contract  with  any  country 
school-teacher  provides  that  he  shall  teach  for 
so  many  weeks,  upon  such  and  such  conditions. 
Now  let  us  suppose  a  teacher  of  genius  to 
obtain  the  post.  He  not  only  teaches  ad 
mirably,  but  he  institutes  school  gardens  for 
the  children;  he  takes  long  walks  with  the 
boys,  and  gives  them  the  rudiments  of  geology. 
He  is  in  himself  an  uplifting  moral  influence, 
and  introduces  the  children  into  a  whole  new 
world  of  idea  and  of  feeling.  The  parents  are 
pleased.  I  will  not  say  that  they  are  grateful; 
but  they  are  not  ungrateful.  It  is  true  that 
they  secretly  believe  all  this  botany  and  moral 
influence  to  be  rubbish;  but  they  tolerate  it. 
Now,  let  us  suppose  that  before  the  year  is  out 
the  teacher  falls  sick,  and  loses  two  weeks  of 

47 


PROFESSORIAL  ETHICS 

school  time  through  absence.  You  will  find 
that  the  trustees  insist  upon  his  making  up  this 
lost  time;  the  contract  calls  for  it.  This  seems 
like  a  mean  and  petty  exaction  for  these  parents 
to  impose  upon  a  saint  who  has  blessed  their 
children,  unto  the  third  and  fourth  generation, 
by  his  presence  among  them.  But  let  us  not 
judge  hastily.  This  strange  exaction  does  not 
result  so  much  from  the  meanness  of  the 
parents,  as  from  their  intellectual  limitations. 
To  these  parents  the  hours  passed  in  school 
are  schooling;  the  rest  does  not  count.  The 
rest  may  be  pleasant  and  valuable,  but  it  is 
not  education. 

In  the  same  way,  the  professional  and  busi 
ness  classes  in  America  do  not  see  any  point  in 
paying  salaries  to  professors  who  are  to  make 
researches,  or  write  books,  or  think  beautiful 
thoughts.  The  influence  which  an  eminent 
man  sheds  about  him  by  his  very  existence, 
the  change  in  tone  that  comes  over  a  rude 
person  through  his  once  seeing  the  face  of  a 
scholar,  the  illumination  of  a  young  character 
through  contact  with  its  own  ideals — such 
things  are  beyond  the  ken  of  the  average 
American  citizen  to-day.  To  him,  they  are 
fables,  to  him  they  are  foolishness.  The 
parent  of  our  college  lad  is  a  farmer  compared 
to  the  parent  of  the  European  lad. 

The  American  parent  regards  himself  as  an 
enlightened  being — yet  he  has  not,  in  these 


PROFESSORIAL  ETHICS 

matters,  an  inkling  of  what  enlightenment  is. 
Now,  the  intelligence  of  that  parent  must  be 
reached;  and  the  learned  classes  must  do  the 
work  of  reaching  it.  The  Fathers  of  the 
Christian  church  made  war  with  book  and 
speech  on  Paganism.  The  leaders  of  the 
Reformation  went  out  among  the  people  and 
made  converts.  The  patriots  of  the  American 
Revolution — nay,  the  fathers  of  modern  sci 
ence,  Tyndal,  Huxley,  Louis  Agaziz,  Helm- 
holtz — wrote  popular  books  and  sought  to  in 
terest  and  educate  the  public  by  direct  contact. 
Then  let  the  later-coming  followers  in  learn 
ing  imitate  this  popular  activity  of  the  old 
leaders:  we  need  a  host  of  battlers  for  the  cause. 
For  whom  do  these  universities  exist,  after 
all  ?  Is  it  not  for  the  people  at  large  ?  Are 
not  the  people  the  ultimate  beneficiaries? 
Then  why  should  the  people  not  be  immedi 
ately  instructed  in  such  manner  as  will  lead  to 
their  supporting  true  universities  ?  It  is  hard 
to  say  why  our  professors  are  so  timid.  Per 
haps  too  great  a  specialization  in  their  own 
education  has  left  them  helpless,  as  all-around 
fighters.  But  the  deeper  reason  seems  to  be 
a  moral  one;  they  think  such  activity  is  beneath 
them.  It  is  not  beneath  them.  Whatever  be 
a  man's  calling,  it  is  not  beneath  him  to  make 
a  fight  for  the  truth.  As  for  a  professor's 
belonging  to  a  mystic  guild,  no  man's  spiritual 
force  is  either  increased  or  diminished  by  the 

4  49 


PROFESSORIAL  ETHICS 

name  he  calls  his  profession.  Learning  is 
their  cause,  and  every  honest  means  to  pro 
mote  learning  should  be  within  their  duty. 
Nor  does  duty  alone  make  this  call  for 
publicity.  Ambition  joins  in  it;  the  legiti 
mate  personal  ambition  of  making  one's 
mind  and  character  felt  in  the  world.  This 
blow  once  struck  means  honor,  and  security 
of  tenure  in  office,  it  means  public  power. 

In  fine,  the  scholars  should  take  the  public 
into  their  confidence  and  dominate  the  business 
men  on  our  college  boards.  This  will  be 
found  more  easy  than  at  first  appears,  because 
the  money  element,  the  millionaire  element, 
is  very  sensitive  to  public  feeling,  and  once 
the  millionaire  succumbs,  the  college  president 
will  succumb  also.  The  step  beyond  this 
would  consist  in  the  scholars'  taking  charge  of 
the  college  themselves,  merely  making  use  of 
certain  business  men  on  their  boards  for  pur 
poses  of  financial  administration. 


THE    DRAMA 


THE  DRAMA. 

WHEN  a  subject  is  too  complex  and  too  subtle 
to  admit  of  any  adequate  analysis,  people 
dogmatize  about  it.  They  believe  that  they 
are  thus  recurring  to  first  principles.  But 
what  are  the  principles?  That  is  just  what 
no  one  can  state.  The  drama  is  one  of  those 
difficult  subjects  which  lure  the  writer  on  and 
draw  him  out.  It  is  a  subject  upon  which 
ideas  flow  easily,  theories  form  of  themselves, 
and  convictions  deepen  in  the  very  act  of 
improvisation.  The  writer  who  will  trust  his 
own  inspiration  can  hardly  fail  to  end  by  saying 
something  very  true  about  the  drama.  That 
is  the  trouble  with  the  drama :  so  many  things 
are  true  of  it.  It  is  scarcely  less  confusing 
than  human  life  itself.  The  difficult  thing  is 
to  strike  some  balance  between  all  these  inter 
locking  and  oscillating  truths. 

Consider,  for  example,  how  many  and 
illusive  are  the  influences  that  go  to  make  up 
a  good  dramatic  performance.  The  elements 
are  interwoven  in  our  consciousness,  mingled 
and  flowing  together  like  motes  in  the  sunbeam, 
rising,  falling,  fading,  changing,  glowing,  and 
ever  suffering  transformation  and  re-birth, 

53 


THE    DRAMA 

like  the  dream-things  that  they  are.  No 
matter  what  you  say  about  a  performance  you 
can  hardly  be  sure  that  you  have  hit  upon  the 
right  explanation.  Let  us  suppose  that  there 
has  been  an  evening  of  inspiring  success. 
Some  golden  lead  of  the  imagination  has  sprung 
up  and  overshot  one  performance — paused, 
passed  and  vanished — leaving  audience  and 
actors,  and  even  critics,  to  account  for  it  as 
they  may.  You  think  you  have  a  clue  to  the 
situation;  but  you  have  barely  time  to  rejoice 
over  your  discovery,  when,  on  the  next  evening, 
disaster  follows  from  the  same  apparent  causes 
as  led  to  the  first  success.  The  fact  is  that 
some  unseen  power  has  been  at  work  upon 
one  evening  and  not  upon  the  next.  The 
weather,  or  the  composition  of  the  audience, 
or  the  mood  of  the  actors  has  changed.  The 
fact  is  that  no  two  occasions  are  really  alike; 
but  they  differ  in  so  many  ways  that  one  can 
scarcely  catalogue  their  divergencies. 

There  is  no  ill-considered  thing  that  an 
author  may  write,  or  an  actor  do  on  the 
stage,  no  mistake  or  violation  of  common 
sense  and  good  art,  that  may  not  be  counter 
balanced  by  some  happiness  which  carries 
the  play  in  spite  of  it.  And  conversely,  there 
is  no  well-reasoned,  profound,  and  true  theory 
of  play-writing  or  stage  management  which, 
if  logically  carried  out,  may  not  prove  the  very 
vehicle  of  damnation.  The  reason  is  that 

54 


THE   DRAMA 

your  theories  are  mere  nets  waved  in  the  air 
some  miles  below  the  stars  which  they  seem  to 
imprison.  Your  true  theories  are  true  only  to 
theory;  the  conditions  always  upset  them.  It 
is,  therefore,  not  without  some  trepidation  that 
I  tread  the  paths  of  this  subject.  I  almost  fear 
the  sound  of  my  own  voice  and  the  conclusions 
of  my  own  reason.  This  fear  shall  be  my 
compass,  this  the  silken  thread,  unwinding  as  I 
walk,  which  shall  lead  me  back  again  out  of 
the  labyrinth  and  into  the  daylight. 

The  aim  of  any  dramatic  performance  is  to 
have  something  happen  on  a  stage  that  shall 
hold  people's  attention  for  two  hours  and  a 
half  or  three  hours.  Anything  that  does  this 
is  a  good  drama;  and  there  are  as  many  kinds 
of  good  drama  as  there  are  flowers  in  the 
meadow.  All  of  these  species  are  closely 
related  to  each  other.  They  are  modifications 
that  spring  up  from  the  roots  of  old  tradition, 
like  shoots  in  an  asparagus  bed. 

The  different  great  divisions  and  species  of 
drama  depend  on  the  size  and  shape  of  the 
theatre  used,  more  than  on  any  other  one 
thing.  For  the  great  theatre  you  must  have 
slow  speech,  or,  at  any  rate,  a  concentration 
of  theme.  For  a  small  modern  theatre  you 
must  have  quicker  motion  and  more  variety. 
Not  only  the  actor  but  the  playwright  must 
have  some  special  size  of  theatre  in  his  mind 
as  he  plans  a  play,  and  must  adapt  his  whole 

55 


THE   DRAMA 

art  to  that  size,  as  he  fashions  his  work.  You 
might  call  this  the  first  canon  of  the  drama. 

Now,  we  have,  at  present,  no  controlling 
conventions,  no  overmastering  habits  of 
thought  about  stage  matters,  and  this  leads  us 
to  forget  the  original  force,  not  to  say  tyranny, 
of  convention  in  other  ages.  England  has 
had  no  controlling  convention  in  stage  matters 
since  Charles  IPs  time;  and  the  English 
stage  has  thus  become  a  free,  wild  sort  of 
place  where  anything  is  permitted.  It  is 
like  the  exhibition  of  the  " Independents'* 
in  Paris,  where  anyone  may  hire  space  and 
hang  what  pictures  he  please,  leaving  the 
public  to  reward  or  punish  him  for  his 
temerity. 

The  disadvantage  of  this  condition  of 
things  is  that  the  public  does  not  know  what 
to  expect,  and  therefore  fine  things  may  be 
misunderstood.  The  playwright  is  not  suffi 
ciently  supported  by  the  crutch  of  tradition. 
He  has  lost  his  task-master;  but  he  has  lost 
also  the  key  to  expression.  A  well-developed, 
formal  tradition  is  as  necessary  to  any  power 
ful  spiritual  deliverance  as  a  system  of  punc 
tuation  is  to  writing.  It  was  not  until  Haydn 
and  Mozart  had  developed  the  form  of  the 
symphony  and  sonata  that  Beethoven's  work 
became  possible.  The  same  holds  true  of 
all  the  arts;  the  great  artist  who  finds  no 
harness  ready-made  for  his  ideas  must  set 

56 


THE   DRAMA 

to  work  like  Giotto  to  painfully  create  a  make 
shift  of  his  own. 

If  we  have  to-day  no  great  tyrant  of  con 
temporary  convention  in  any  of  the  arts,  we 
have  a  hundred  fashions.  The  age  is  eclectic; 
the  conventional  side  of  art  is  at  a  discount. 
Now  in  the  drama,  the  conventional  side  of 
art  is  of  peculiar  importance.  The  more  you 
surprise  an  audience,  the  less  you  will  please 
it.  The  thing  that  entertains  and  relaxes 
people  is  to  have  something  unmistakable 
and  easy  unrolled  before  them;  something 
in  which  the  problems  are  plainly  stated  and 
solved  beyond  the  possibility  of  a  doubt. 
The  good  man  and  bad  man  must  be  labeled; 
and  so  must  the  different  sorts  of  plays  receive 
labels — as,  Comedy,  Tragedy,  Farce,  Problem- 
play,  Tank-drama,  etc.;  otherwise  a  great 
part  of  the  attention  of  the  audience  will  be 
exhausted  in  finding  the  right  humor.  The 
modern  playwright  has  thus  a  problem  that 
is  new  to  the  stage,  the  problem  of  giving  the 
grand  cue  to  the  audience  as  to  which  kind  of 
play  is  coming. 

After  all,  the  condition  of  the  contemporary 
stage  is  very  much  like  the  condition  of  con 
temporary  painting.  Any  good  historical 
gallery  contains  samples  from  the  whole 
history  of  art.  There  are  as  well-defined 
classes  of  pictures  as  there  are  of  dramas: 
e.  g.j  the  religious  picture,  the  genre  picture, 

57 


THE   DRAMA 

the  portrait,  the  landscape,  etc.;  and  within 
each  of  these  classes  there  exists  a  world  of 
half-defined  traditions  in  which  educated 
persons  are  learned,  and  by  which  all  artists 
are  somewhat  controlled.  Now  each  of 
these  classes  was  originally  the  product  of  an 
age  devoted  to  it.  But  to-day  the  artist  is 
eclectic.  He  is  eclectic  in  spite  of  himself 
because  he  is  not  forced  by  universal  expecta 
tion  to  do  a  particular  thing:  he  must  choose. 
Whether  he  be  painter  or  dramatist,  the 
artist  in  Western  Europe  to-day  is  born  into  an 
epoch  of  miscellaneous  experiment.  Let  him 
choose.  The  spread  of  international  educa 
tion  has  brought  about  this  state  of  things: 
art  is  becoming  an  international  commodity. 

Let  us  return  to  the  drama,  and  seize  upon 
some  convenient  model  of  a  conventional  play 
— for  instance,  the  old-fashioned  melodrama. 
What  a  relief  it  is  to  find  in  the  opening  act  of 
a  play  that  we  are  upon  familiar  ground,  that 
we  know  very  well  what  is  coming  and  can 
enjoy  the  elaboration  of  it.  We  must  have 
a  taste  for  the  whole  species  or  we  can  never 
either  like  or  understand  the  particular  exam 
ple.  And  so  also  in  judging  of  any  drama  of 
another  age  we  must  positively  bring  the 
whole  of  the  epoch  to  bear  upon  it  or  we  are 
lost.  The  Elizabethans  before  Shakespeare's 
time  had  developed  a  drama  of  horrors,  or 
running-mad  play,  in  which  the  audience  knew 


THE   DRAMA 

from  the  outset  that  someone  was  to  be  dogged 
and  tortured  and  dragged  through  a  living 
Inferno  before  being  thrown  on  the  dung-hill. 
The  audience  expected  to  be  moved  to  awe 
and  to  a  certain  sort  of  solemn  horror  by  the 
tragedy.  The  play  was  to  be  in  blank  verse,  a 
narrative  play  full  of  incident — with  a  host  of 
characters  and  many  changes  of  imaginary 
scene.  The  story  was  to  be  new  to  the  audi 
ence  and  as  exciting  as  possible.  Very  often  it 
had,  to  our  modern  thinking,  no  plot;  but  was 
a  helter-skelter  of  delirious  cruelty,  accom 
panied  by  torrents  of  passionately  excited 
words  which  sometimes  broke  into  great  poetry 
and  more  often  soared  in  a  cloudland  of 
divine  bombast.  The  people  loved  this  lan 
guage.  They  reveled  in  the  rhetoric  of  the 
dialogue,  and  wallowed  in  the  boldness  of  the 
action.  The  first  line,  or  even  the  very  name 
of  a  horror-play  in  Elizabeth's  time,  was 
enough  to  throw  the  audience  into  the  proper 
mood.  How  mistaken  is  it  for  one  of  us  to 
day  to  read  any  old  play  without  conjuring  up 
something  of  its  epoch. 

Now  let  us  remember  the  Greeks,  since  we 
canot  escape  them.  The  cultivated,  conven 
tional,  logical,  and  over-civilized  Greek  wished 
his  tragedy  to  be  elegant  and  in  a  just  measure 
solemn,  not  to  say  awe-inspiring.  He  ex 
pected  this,  much  as  we  expect  coffee  after 
dinner  when  we  dine  out.  It  was  to  be  done 

59 


THE   DRAMA 

through  the  means  of  one  of  the  old  Greek 
myths,  a  thing  half  history,  half  fable  in  its 
complexion. 

In  the  days  of  ^Eschylus  the  Athenian 
audience  was  made  up  of  God-fearing,  con 
servative  people  who  could  be  moved  to  awe 
by  the  contemplation  of  religious  ideas,  and  by 
pictures  of  lofty  moral  sufferings.  But  as 
time  went  on,  the  people  became  bored  by  the 
old  Greek  religion,  and  it  required  more  highly 
colored  pictures  to  satisfy  them.  In  the  days 
of  Sophocles  there  is  a  certain  amount  of 
religious  feeling  left  in  the  people,  though  one 
feels  that  Sophocles  is  making  use  of  it  for 
artistic  purposes.  In  Euripides'  day,  however, 
everything  has  been  used  up  in  the  way  of  big 
moral  ideas,  and  the  emphasis  is  laid  on  the 
suffering.  Mental  agony  is  manipulated  by  a 
skilled  hand.  The  taste  is  refined,  the  logic 
is  perfect,  the  art  is  wonderful;  but  the  dramas 
of  Euripides  were  felt  in  his  own  day  and  there 
after  to  be  a  little  corrupt.  People  blame 
Euripides  instead  of  blaming  the  insensibility 
of  the  Athenian  theatre-goer  who  required 
this  sort  of  enginery  to  make  him  weep  de 
licious  tears.  The  thing  to  be  noted  in  both 
of  these  instances — from  the  English  and  the 
Greek  stage — is  the  part  played  by  the  audi 
ence.  It  is  only  through  a  tacit  consent  on  all 
hands  that  a  certain  game  shall  be  played,  that 
very  highly-finished,  complex  and  perfect 
60 


THE   DRAMA 

works  of  art  are  produced.  There  is  so 
much  to  be  conveyed  by  a  drama  that  unless 
the  audience  will  agree  to  take  nine-tenths  of  it 
for  granted,  the  project  is  hopeless.  The 
conventions!  These  are  the  precious  symbols 
which  have  been  developed  by  centuries  of  toil. 
They  possess  such  telling  value  that  by  their 
aid  even  mediocrity  can  do  good  things,  and 
genius,  miracles.  How  shall  we  preserve 
them? 

The  world  of  drama  appears  to-day  to  be  at 
sea,  by  reason  of  the  loss  of  the  great  compass 
of  a  controlling  dramatic  tradition,  yet  this  is 
not  quite  true;  because  other  influences — vague 
perhaps,  yet  very  authoritative — supply,  in 
some  degree,  the  place  of  the  older  tyrant, 
custom.  The  controlling  force  of  living 
dramatic  practice  has  died  away  in  the  world, 
and  has  become  dissipated  into  a  thousand 
traditions.  But  in  dying,  it  has  left  two  influ 
ences  as  its  heirs — namely,  the  influence  of 
criticism,  and  the  influence  of  academic  train 
ing.  These  two  watch-dogs  of  the  drama  tend 
to  keep  at  least  some  record  of  the  past.  They 
organize  and  classify  the  new  varieties  of 
drama  which  are  constantly  springing  up. 
For  it  appears  that  a  new  kind  of  drama  is  not 
so  very  difficult  a  thing  for  a  community  to 
develop.  The  oratorio,  for  example,  and 
modern  opera  in  all  its  forms,  are  even  more 
artificial  than  the  Greek  drama,  and  require 
61 


THE   DRAMA 

an  even  greater  conventional  sympathy  on  the 
part  of  the  audience.  Yet  they  have  grown 
up  naturally  among  us  and  are  true  children  of 
stage  life.  In  quite  recent  years  Wagner, 
Ibsen,  and  Maeterlinck  has  each  developed  a 
personal  theatre  of  his  own.  Each  has  drawn 
to  himself  a  sort  of  international  public,  held 
together  by  ties  of  education,  by  taste  and  by 
the  spirit  of  the  age — such  a  public  as  a  novel 
ist  might  collect,  but  which  one  would  never 
have  predicted  for  a  playwright.  This  could 
only  have  happened  in  an  age  when  there 
existed  a  large  reading  public  made  up  of 
persons  who  were  scattered  throughout  all  the 
nations.  For  it  must  be  noted  that  the  reading 
of  plays  is  as  good  as  a  chorus.  It  warns  the 
people  of  what  is  to  come.  Not  only  the  read 
ing  of  plays  but  the  reading  of  pamphlets  and  of 
essays  is  necessary  in  order  that  people  may 
be  primed  to  accept  any  new  departure  in 
the  drama.  The  undeniable  genius  of  Gluck 
was  not  able  to  establish  his  lyrical  drama 
without  the  aid  of  many  writers,  talkers,  and 
promoters.  It  required  a  war  of  pamphlets 
and  the  influence  of  royalty  to  make  the  new 
opera  acceptable.  Ibsen  and  Wagner  have 
been  accompanied  by  a  wagonload  of  pam 
phlets  and  broadsides,  as  if  they  were  the  fore 
runners  of  a  new  circus.  Bernard  Shaw  went 
with  every  play  he  gave  as  an  advertising 
agent,  a  gladiator  and  shouting  billman  that 
62 


THE   DRAMA 

would  get  the  attention  of  the  public  at  any 
price.  It  was  quieter  inside  the  theatre  than 
outside  of  it,  so  people  took  refuge  within. 

Let  no  one  think  that  criticism  is  an  un 
necessary  part  of  the  modern  drama.  Criti 
cism  to-day  is  but  the  articulate  utterance 
of  those  conventions,  those  assumptions,  and 
prejudices  which  must  accompany  and  support 
any  drama  in  the  mind  of  the  audience,  and 
which  in  simpler  ages  hardly  needed  state 
ment,  because  they  were  established.  They 
stood  in  the  public  consciousness  much  as  the 
walls  of  the  theatre  stood  in  the  market-place, 
while  the  plays  proceeded  within  them. 

There  has  always  been  criticism.  Aristotle 
did  not  begin  it,  but  he  is  the  starting-point  of 
that  great  river  of  Thought-about-Art  which 
has  accompanied  the  developments  of  the  arts 
since  Greek  times.  The  history  of  criticism  is 
tremendous  in  volume,  in  brilliancy,  and  in 
seriousness;  and  it  has  a  great  utility  and  mis 
sion  toward  the  world  at  large.  If  anyone 
have  a  curiosity  to  know  what  this  literature  is, 
let  him  glance  through  Saintsbury's  History  of 
Criticism  in  three  great  tomes  of  many  hundred 
pages  each,  in  which  the  great  names  and  the 
great  theories  in  criticism  are  reviewed.  This 
is  a  part  of  the  literary  history,  of  the  bookish 
history  of  the  world.  From  Plato  to  Lessing, 
from  Longinus  to  Santayana  there  have  been 
acute-minded  individuals  who  loved  the  fine 

63 


THE   DRAMA 

arts,  poetry,  sculpture,  music,  the  drama,  etc., 
and  who  busied  themselves  with  speculation 
upon  them.  These  men  would  pluck  out  the 
heart  of  the  mystery,  they  would  touch  our 
quick  with  their  needle,  they  would  satisfy  our 
intellect  with  their  explanations.  And  here 
arises  one  of  the  subtlest  difficulties  in  all 
psychology;  the  difficulty  of  explaining  clearly 
how  men  of  the  greatest  intellect  may  be  sub 
ject  to  the  grossest  self-delusion.  The  reason 
ings  of  these  critics  about  art  are  valid  as  reason 
ings  of  critics  about  art,  so  long  as  they  are 
kept  in  the  arena  of  the  reasoning  of  critics 
about  art.  But  if  you  try  to  translate  those 
reasonings  back  again  into  the  substance  of 
art  itself — if,  for  instance,  you  bid  the  artist 
follow  the  admonition  of  the  critic,  you  will 
find  that  the  artist  cannot  do  this  without 
making  a  retranslation  of  the  critic's  ideas 
into  terms  which  now  become  incomprehen 
sible  to  the  critic.  In  order  to  take  the  critic's 
advice — to  produce  the  effects  which  the  critic 
calls  for — the  artist  must  do  with  his  material 
things  which  the  critic  has  not  mentioned  and 
does  not  conceive  of. 

The  critic,  after  all,  is  a  parasite.  He 
lives  by  illustrating  the  brains  of  the  artist. 
He  is  an  illuminator.  He  has  produced  a 
wonderful  literature — a  literature  of  embroid 
ery — and  this  literature  is  very  valuable  to 
the  world  at  large;  but  has,  as  it  were,  no 


THE   DRAMA 

mission  as  toward  the  artist.  The  reason  is 
that  the  artist  gets  his  experience  of  art  by 
working  directly  and  immediately  in  the  art; 
and  the  problems  he  works  on  can  neither 
be  stated  nor  solved  except  in  the  terms  of 
his  art.  The  critic,  meanwhile,  believes  that 
he  himself  has  stated  and  solved  those  prop- 
lems;  but  what  he  says  is  folly  to  the  ears  of 
the  artist.  The  misunderstanding  must  con 
tinue  forever,  and  neither  of  the  parties  is  to 
blame  for  it.  Listen  to  the  most  good- 
natured  of  artists,  Moliere,  speaking  with 
the  authority  of  unbounded  success,  upon 
the  subject  that  drives  lesser  men  to  helpless 
rage:— 

"Vous  etes  de  plaisantes  gens  avec  vos  regies, 
dont  vous  embarrassez  les  ignorants  et  nous  etour- 
dissez  tous  les  jours.  II  semble,  a  vous  oui'r  parler, 
que  ces  regies  de  Fart  soient  les  plus  grands  mysteres 
du  monde,  et  cependant  ce  ne  sont  que  quelques 
observations  aise'es  que  le  bon  sens  a  faites  sur  ce 
qui  peut  6ter  le  plaisir  que  Ton  prend  a  ces  sortes 
de  poemes;  et  le  meme  bon  sens,  qui  a  fait  autrefois 
ces  observations,  les  fait  aise*ment  tous  les  jours  sans 
le  secours  d' Horace  et  d'Aristote.  Je  voudrais  bien 
savoir  si  la  grande  regie  de  toutes  les  regies  n'est  pas 
de  plaire,  et  si  une  piece  de  theatre  qui  a  attrape* 
son  but  n'a  pa  suivi  un  bon  chemin.  Laissons-nous 
aller  de  bonne  foi  aux  choses  qui  nous  prennent  par 
les  entrailles,  et  ne  cherchons  point  de  raisonnement 
pour  nous  empecher  d' avoir  du  plaisir."  .  .  . 

Even  Moliere  is  a  little  harsh  to  the  critics. 
He  seems  not  to  remember  that  critics  are 
5  65 


THE   DRAMA 

"seized  by  the  entrails' '  by  a  set  of  psycho 
logical  terms,  by  "the  sublime,"  by  "beauty," 
by  "contrast,"  by  the  very  idea  that  there 
should  be  laws  underlying  the  mysteries  of 
aesthetic  enjoyment — laws  which  critics  pro 
claim.  The  fact  is  that  the  sincerity  and 
enthusiasm  of  the  critic  carries  all  before  it. 
It  seems  to  the  critic  as  if  the  artist  were  a 
poor  fool  who  does  not  quite  understand 
himself.  Moliere  has  had  his  say,  but  what 
of  that?  No  critic  was  listening.  The  critic 
feels  too  keenly  about  the  matter  to  catch 
the  drift  of  Moliere's  remarks.  You  cannot 
persuade  Ruskin  that  he  does  not  under 
stand  painting.  You  cannot  make  Aristotle 
believe  that  he  stands  in  the  position  of  an 
outsider  toward  tragic  poetry.  He  smiles  at 
the  suggestion.  He  feels  himself  to  be  quite 
on  the  level  of  his  subject.  Before  he  spoke, 
it  had  not  spoken.  Leave  the  critic,  then,  to 
his  thesis:  and  let  us  confess  that  for  everyone 
except  for  the  artist,  that  thesis  has  a  great 
and  stimulating  value. 

The  words  of  the  critical,  even  though 
they  come  from  outside  the  profession,  have 
a  value  in  preserving  and  in  interpreting  good 
traditions  in  art.  The  real  power,  however, 
through  which  these  traditions  live  is  the 
teaching  done  inside  of  the  profession.  What 
the  apprentice  learns  at  the  bench  from  the 
master-craftsman — this  is  what  controls  the 
66 


THE   DRAMA 

future  of  art.  It  is  through  this  teaching 
that  the  raw  youth  is  turned  into  a  craftsman. 
No  one  who  has  not  passed  through  the  mill 
can  conceive  the  depth  to  which  nature  must 
be  affected  through  training  before  art  is 
gained.  The  artist  is  as  much  a  product 
of  art  as  his  own  works  are.  To  execute 
the  simplest  acts  of  his  profession  he  must 
have  passed  through  a  severe  novitiate.  He 
cannot  sound  a  note  of  it  till  he  has  been  re 
fashioned,  as  Mrs.  Browning  sang,  from  a 
reed  into  a  musical  instrument. 

There  are  certain  ways  of  reciting  verse 
and  of  speaking  prose,  certain  ways  of  walking 
on  and  off  the  stage,  which  are  expressive, 
correct,  and  necessary.  To  drop  them  is  a 
sign  of  ignorance  and  decadence.  They 
cannot  be  replaced  by  something  modern  that 
is  just  as  good:  they  are  a  race  inheritance. 
If  you  lose  them  you  will  have  to  re-discover 
them  subsequently,  just  as,  if  you  were  to 
lose  the  science  of  harmony,  you  would  have 
to  discover  it  again  before  you  could  under 
stand  the  music  of  modern  times.  How  is 
it  that  these  practices  and  trade  secrets  of  the 
arts  get  preserved  during  periods  of  public 
indifference,  when  perhaps  the  studios  might 
forget  them  ?  It  is  by  the  institution  of  Acad 
emies  and  Lyceums:  by  the  endowment  of 
galleries  and  theatres.  The  nations  of  Con 
tinental  Europe  long  ago  resorted  to  state- 


THE   DRAMA 

supported  schools,  galleries,  and  play-houses 
as  a  means  of  preserving  tradition.  On  the 
Continent  no  one  is  allowed  to  forget  the  old 
forms.  They  are  nursed  and  cultivated. 
The  very  nations  which  need  training  the 
least,  because  of  their  natural  talent,  and  of 
their  proximity  to  the  old  Mediterranean 
seats  of  culture,  get  the  most  of  it,  because  of 
their  intelligent  understanding  of  what  art 
consists  in.  Among  late-comers  at  the  table 
of  civilization,  and  among  young  people 
generally,  there,  prevails  an  opinion  that  art 
is  the  result  of  genius,  or  of  natural  tem 
perament,  or  of  race  endowment.  But  the 
persons  who  have  the  endowment  of  race, 
of  temperament,  and  of  genius  know  that  art 
is  a  question  of  training. 

It  is  a  sign  that  civilization  has  been  spread 
ing  to  find  that  in  England  and  in  America, 
men  are  beginning  to  adopt  Continental 
ideas  upon  the  subject  of  endowed  theatres. 
The  chaotic  condition  of  the  English  stage 
has  been  very  largely  due  to  the  fact  that  it 
has  been  nobody's  business  to  preserve  the 
old  recipes.  If  the  public  taste  swings  away 
from  lyrical  drama  for  a  decade,  lyrical  drama 
goes  by  the  board — the  very  models  and  old 
wig  stands  are  thrown  out  of  the  window. 
In  a  few  years,  only  a  few  old  actors  and  play 
goers  will  remember  the  lost  delights  that 
went  with  these  trappings.  A  whole  province 
68 


THE   DRAMA 

of  human  happiness  has  been  eaten  up  by 
the  sea  of  oblivion— by  that  all-surrounding, 
ever-active  ocean  that  gnaws  away  the  out 
lying  realms  of  the  mind,  and  will  eat  us  back 
to  mere  grunts  and  a  sign  language  unless 
we  value  our  inheritance  of  articulation. 
Without  the  support  of  schools  of  acting  the 
present  moment  remains  continually  too  im 
portant.  Those  whole  classes  of  exquisite, 
beautiful  things  which  go  out  of  fashion  and 
are  thereafter  all  but  irrecoverable,  should 
be  held  before  the  public  with  as  firm  a  hand 
as  orchestral  music  has  been  held  before  it, 
and  for  the  same  reasons.  We  are  always 
being  told  by  theatrical  people  that  the  public 
taste  will  or  will  not  support  something. 
Does  anybody  inquire  whether  the  American 
public  likes  Bach  or  Beethoven,  or  does  any 
body  take  advice  of  the  press  as  to  how  the 
works  of  those  masters  shall  be  played  ?  No. 
The  best  traditions  are  followed,  the  best 
performers  obtained,  and  the  effect  upon  the 
public  mind  is  awaited  with  patience  and 
with  certainty.  That  is  the  way  a  State 
Theatre  is  run  in  Europe,  and  that  is  the 
way  that  a  New  Theatre  should  be  run  in 
America. 

With  regard  to  music,  we  have  adopted  the 

Continental  ideas  easily,  because  we  had  no 

music  of  our  own.     But  with  regard  to  the 

drama  we  have  certain  crude  ideas  of  our 

69 


THE   DRAMA 

own,  rooted  in  the  existence  of  a  domestic 
drama,  and  these  ideas  impede  our  progress. 
We  have,  for  instance,  a  belief  that  because 
an  audience  is  used  to  an  inferior  thing,  there 
fore  it  will  continue  to  prefer  that  thing  to 
something  better  and  that  the  reformer  should 
content  himself  with  giving  the  public  only  a 
taste  now  and  then  of  something  fine,  and 
should  keep  in  touch  with  them  in  the  mean 
time  through  concessions  to  popular  taste. 
This  would  be  sound  reasoning  in  the  mouth 
of  the  business  manager  of  an  ordinary  theat 
rical  venture;  but  in  the  mouth  of  the 
manager  of  an  educational  theatre,  it  is 
blasphemy.  The  thesis  upon  which  all  educa 
tion  rests  is  this:  give  the  best,  and  it  will 
supplant  the  less  good. 

I  doubt  if  anyone  in  the  country  is  more 
grateful  than  I  am  to  the  managers  of  the 
New  Theatre.  They  have  begun  a  great 
work.  The  whole  country  is  in  debt  to  them 
already.  They  are  showing  a  spirit  which 
will  make  their  future  work  continually  im 
prove;  and  their  efforts  have,  on  the  whole, 
been  received  with  that  lack  of  intelligent 
gratitude  with  which  society  always  receives 
its  benefactors.  Nevertheless  their  work  and 
their  position  seem  to  illustrate  so  many 
points  in  the  subject,  that  a  little  incidental 
criticism  of  them  is  unavoidable.  If  I  find 
fault  with  the  New  Theatre  for  not  being 
70 


THE   DRAMA 

sufficiently  academic,  it  is  only  to  illustrate 
how  completely  academic  standards  have 
been  vanishing  in  America.  For  instance, 
the  art  of  reciting  Shakespeare  has  been  all 
but  lost,  and  the  New  Theatre  proved  this 
quite  unconsciously  by  a  plunge,  upon  some 
occasions,  into  a  sort  of  household  naturalism 
in  its  method  of  reciting  romantic  drama. 
An  epoch  like  the  present,  in  which  the  cur 
rent  new  plays  are  naturalistic,  will  tend  to 
recite  Shakespeare  in  a  naturalistic  way.  But 
only  the  abeyance  of  good  tradition  could 
have  led  to  the  attempt  to  give  Shakespeare's 
lines  in  a  conversational  manner.  We  have 
forgotten  how  effective  the  lines  are  when 
conventionally  given,  or  we  should  resent 
this  experiment  in  taking  the  starch  out  of 
them.  Indeed  upon  certain  other  occasions 
the  old  standards  of  speech  were  last  winter 
brought  back  in  magnificent  triumph  at  the 
New  Theatre.  If  it  was  chiefly  to  the  English 
men  and  Englishwomen  of  the  New  Theatre 
Company  that  we  in  America  owed  this 
beautiful  lesson  in  speech,  let  us  none  the 
less  be  grateful  for  the  lesson  and  draw  from 
it  what  profit  we  may. 

There  are  people  who  believe  that  verse  is 
merely  a  decorated  sort  of  prose;  and  that  in 
connection  with  the  drama,  verse  is  a  foolish 
superfluity.  The  people  who  think  this  have 
not  heard  verse  well  recited.  The  delivery  of 


THE   DRAMA 

metrical  language  in  an  elevated  manner  is  the 
noblest  tradition  of  the  stage.  It  is  a  thing  at 
the  same  time  completely  artificial  and  com 
pletely  beautiful.  It  lifts  the  play  into  a  region 
native  to  great  thoughts,  where  lightnings  strike, 
as  in  their  element,  and  music  like  a  natural 
thunder  rolls  across  the  scene.  To-day  the 
secret  of  this  majestic  convention  of  verse  is 
lost  to  the  stage.  Neither  in  the  writing  of  it 
by  the  poet  nor  in  the  delivery  of  it  by  the  actor, 
nor  in  the  reception  and  enjoyment  of  it  by 
the  audience  can  the  thing  come  off  happily 
except  under  rare  conditions,  when  all  are 
prepared  for  it  and  when  the  right  planets  are 
in  the  ascendant.  We  live  under  an  eclipse; 
yet  is  not  the  sun  extinguished.  Verse  will 
return  to  the  drama  as  soon  as  those  themes 
return  which  only  verse  can  carry. 

All  these  conventions  and  settings  of  which 
we  have  been  speaking  are  but  the  accessories, 
the  servants  of  the  stage;  and,  like  insolent 
lackeys,  they  sometimes  thrust  themselves 
vulgarly  forward.  The  wardrobe  of  Louis 
XIV  might  easily  make  the  claim  that  the 
monarchy  could  not  be  carried  on  without  it. 
And  yet,  on  the  stage,  it  is  not  quite  so.  On 
the  stage,  no  particular  set  of  accessories  is 
ever  so  important  as  it  thinks  itself.  The 
multiplicity  of  the  forces  at  work  saves  us 
from  such  shameful  subjection  to  detail. 
We  can  always,  at  a  pinch,  get  on  without  any 
72 


THE   DRAMA 

of  the  accessories.  Have  you  ever,  when  cha 
rades  were  being  acted,  seen  some  talented  per 
son  enter  the  room,  wearing  an  old  hat  and  hav 
ing  a  shawl  or  perhaps  a  window  curtain  drawn 
across  his  shoulders  ?  For  some  brief  moments 
of  inspiration  he  manages  to  make  you  see 
Hector  of  Troy,  or  The  Man  that  broke  the 
Bank  at  Monte  Carlo.  You  cannot  tell  how 
it  was  done,  it  was  so  rapid.  Yet  you  have 
had  a  glimpse  of  an  idea.  You  have  been 
transported  somehow  and  somewhere.  Per 
haps  the  actor  cannot  do  it  again;  for  amateurs 
strike  sparks  and  call  up  spirits  by  accident. 
Nevertheless,  the  thing  you  have  seen  is  the 
essence  of  drama.  An  idea  has  been  conveyed ; 
and  all  the  means  that  conveyed  it  have  been 
lost — consumed  like  gunpowder  in  the  explo 
sion.  We  can  all  remember  various  amateur 
performances  and  revivals  of  old  plays,  in  which 
the  accessories  were  of  the  simplest;  and  in 
which  the  suppression  of  scenery  and  the  focus 
ing  of  the  audience's  whole  attention  upon  the 
actors  had  a  wonderfully  stimulating  effect 
upon'  the  talents  of  the  actors.  The  means 
were  at  a  minimum;  the  idea,  the  thought  was 
at  a  maximum.  In  this  amateur  spark  we 
have  the  key  to  the  real  theatre. 

The  building,  the  costumes,  the  incidental 
music,  the  blank  verse,  all  the  accessories  of  a 
play  exist  for  the  purpose  of  making  an  at 
mosphere  of  high  conductivity,  in  which  that 

73 


THE   DRAMA 

spark  of  idea  may  fly  out  from  the  stage,  across 
the  footlights,  into  the  audience.  During 
great  moments  or  great  half-hours  of  a  play 
this  same  disappearance  of  the  accessories 
takes  place,  and  gives  us  the  life  of  drama. 
We  are  always  losing  this  life,  because  the 
accessories  have  independent  and  fluctuating 
values  of  their  own  which  attract  our  attention. 
Costume  seems  to  be  an  advantage  in  helping 
to  hold  the  illusion,  and  scenery  is  merely  an 
extension  of  costume.  Either  of  them  may 
attract  too  much  attention,  and  how  much  this 
too  much  is,  depends  upon  the  sensibilities  of 
the  auditor.  For  example,  Twelfth  Night 
is  injured  in  my  eyes  when  it  is  given  with 
beautiful  Italian  scenery,  no  matter  how 
beautiful.  Toby  Belch  is,  in  my  mind,  con 
nected  with  rural  England,  and  to  see  him 
with  Vesuvius  in  the  background  shocks  me. 
Nevertheless,  the  next  man  may  find  in  this 
Italian  scenery  a  gentle  stimulus  which  height 
ens  his  enjoyment  of  the  inner  drama.  Again, 
blank  verse,  when  properly  spoken,  adds  to  a 
play  a  moving  charm  like  an  accompaniment  of 
music;  but  when  the  lines  are  declaimed  with 
either  too  much  or  too  little  artifice,  they 
become  a  nuisance.  All  the  means  and 
vehicles  of  expression  should  fill  the  mere 
margin  of  our  attention,  ready  to  step  forward 
when  the  mind's  stage  is  empty  and  to  vanish 
on  the  approach  of  the  dramatic  interest. 

74 


THE   DRAMA 

The  Greek  stage  came  as  near  to  the  cha 
rade  as  the  theatre  has  ever  come  since.  Here 
was  no  scenery,  and  the  costume  was  merely 
suggestive.  Play  of  feature  was  out  of  the 
question,  because  of  the  mask.  The  appeal  of 
the  natural  voice  was  out  of  the  question, 
because  of  the  megaphone  mouth-piece. 
There  was  nothing  left  but  gesture  and  into 
nation.  What  a  denudation  that  seems  to  us ! 
But  are  you  sure  that  the  imagination  is  not 
heightened  by  just  such  devices  as  this?  Are 
you  sure  that  Hector  or  Heracles  are  not  made 
ten  times  as  real  by  this  absence  of  realism  as 
they  ever  could  have  been  made  by  naturalistic 
treatment  ? 

A  character  comes  on  the  Greek  stage,  and 
you  perceive  by  his  talk  that  he  is  supposed  to 
be  walking  in  a  wood.  In  a  few  moments  he 
arrives  at  an  imaginary  point  of  view.  Another 
character  walks  on  the  stage,  and  you  perceive 
that  this  second  character  is  supposed  to  have 
come  walking  up  the  valley.  Your  whole 
attention  is  on  the  story,  and  any  striking  scen 
ery  would  be  an  unpleasant  intrusion,  an 
inartistic  element.  Surely  the  Greeks  were 
very  clever  at  mechanical  contrivances  and 
could  have  had  scenery  if  they  had  desired  it. 
What  they  had  was  much  better, — imagination. 

It  is  the  same  with  the  French  classic  stage, 
whose  meagreness  of  decoration  is  almost  an 
offense  to  the  American.  The  higher  the 

75 


THE   DRAMA 

intelligence  of  the  audience,  the  less  will 
scenery  be  valued  in  plays.  In  the  case  of 
children's  toys,  we  all  know  that  a  rag  doll  and 
a  wooly  dog  speak  a  more  eloquent  language 
than  a  mechanical  doll  and  a  realistic  dog  that 
walks.  But  we  dare  not  employ  this  philos 
ophy  in  dressing  our  stage,  because  of  the 
lack  of  imagination  in  grown  people. 

I  have  no  doubt  that  if  you  had,  say,  thirty 
new  plays  to  produce,  each  of  them  as  good  as 
Hamlet,  and  if  your  audience  were  to  consist 
of  the  most  intelligent  people  in  the  world,  and 
if  your  actors  were  all  and  each  as  good  as 
David  Garrick,  I  have  no  doubt,  I  say,  that 
the  most  thrilling  way  you  could  produce  those 
plays  would  be  on  a  stage  without  scenery  and 
with  just  such  suggestion  of  costume  as  should 
lift  the  characters  into  the  world  of  idea. 
Such  was  the  Elizabethan  method;  at  least  it 
was  the  practice  which  the  Elizabethans 
stumbled  upon  in  their  riotous  career. 

The  world  of  idea  is  what  you  are  seeking, 
no  matter  how  sure  you  may  be  that  you  want 
realism.  The  power  of  a  play  comes  from  this, 
that  it  makes  people  believe  that  the  action 
on  the  stage  is  not  merely  a  story,  which  has 
happened  and  is  over — but  is  a  thing  which 
is  going  on,  a  truth,  a  spiritual,  inward  reality 
which  has  to  do  with  the  life  and  sentiments 
of  the  audience.  This  is  what  we  want,  what 
we  always  want,  whether  we  are  playing 


THE   DRAMA 

Lear,  or  Ibsen,  or  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin.  The 
different  kinds  of  drama  use  different  means 
of  suggesting  spiritual  reality.  Poetic  images 
are  one  way,  sideboards  and  furniture  are 
another  way.  Now  it  must  be  confessed  at 
once  that  realism  does  tend  to  convey  spiritual 
truth  to  people  who  possess  a  low  degree  of 
reflective  power.  A  reproduction  in  detail 
of  something  seen  in  real  life — wax-works,  for 
instance — impresses  the  unimaginative  person 
more  strongly  than  a  sketch  of  the  same 
thing  done  by  Rembrandt;  yet  both  the  wax 
works  and  the  Rembrandt  have  the  same 
end  in  view — to  bring  home  an  idea  to  the 
beholder.  We  may,  then,  measure  the  life 
in  people's  fancy  by  the  weight  of  suggestion 
which  is  requisite  to  awaken  them — a  feather 
of  imagery  or  a  cannon  ball  of  actuality — 
and  in  this  we  shall  not  be  dealing  with  several 
kinds  of  dramatic  principle,  but  only  with 
several  conditions  of  education  in  the  audience. 
The  recent  realism  seen  on  our  own  stage 
shows  a  deadness  of  wit  in  our  life — the  sad 
unresponsive  seriousness  of  persons  who  do 
not  habitually  live  in  the  world  of  imagina 
tion.  That  world  seems  flat  to  them.  Never 
theless,  the  same  persons  will,  with  a  little 
encouragement,  begin  to  enjoy  humor,  and 
trust  poetry.  Put  them  where  they  have 
no  critical  responsibility  and  they  will  blossom 
into  enjoyment.  O  blessed  amateurs!  I 

77 


THE   DRAMA 

wish  someone  would  write  a  book  and  show 
that  the  whole  history  of  art  has  been  but  the 
history  of  amateurs;  and  that  every  revival 
of  painting,  drama,  music,  architecture,  and 
poetry  has  been  due  to  them.  They  cannot, 
perhaps,  make  great  music  themselves,  but 
they  hand  the  lyre  to  Apollo.  They  have 
not  the  training,  but  they  have  the  passion 
that  finds  talent  in  others  and  protects  the 
flame  while  it  is  young.  They  suspect  the 
secret  of  a  lost  art  and  go  in  search  of  it  as  for 
the  Golden  Fleece.  And  amateurs,  yes  the 
amateurs  are  the  persons  who  will  keep  the 
drama  from  ever  quite  losing  all  relation  to 
its  ancestor — its  good  genius — the  charade. 

The  great  aim  of  any  drama  is  to  make 
all  the  audience  and  all  the  actors  think  of  the 
same  thing  at  the  same  moment  during  the 
entire  evening.  The  "argument,"  as  they 
used  to  call  it,  is  the  main  thing.  It  is  astonish 
ing  what  a  good  name  this  is  for  the  exposi 
tion  of  ideas  that  takes  place  in  a  very  good 
play  either  ancient  or  modern.  The  argu 
ment  is  what  both  audience  and  actors  breath 
lessly  follow.  We  err  only  when  we  begin  to 
define  what  the  argument  is.  It  seems,  in 
truth,  to  be  something  too  subtle  for  analysis. 
In  some  plays  we  think  we  find  it  in  the  plot, 
in  others  in  the  characters,  in  others  in  the 
language,  and  so  forth.  But  there  is  hardly 
a  definition  of  it  which  some  famous  example/ 

78 


THE  DRAMA 

will  not  instantly  confute.  There  is,  for  in 
stance,  a  charm  that  comes  out  of  As  You 
Like  It,  and  which  for  three  hundred  years 
has  made  audiences  consent  to  sit  through 
its  three  hours  of  happy  trifling.  That 
charm  is  the  "argument"  of  As  You  Like  It. 
You  cannot  state  the  charm.  It  is  as  subtle 
as  the  ether  and  as  real  as  the  power  of  light 
that  moves  across  the  ether.  Our  senses  are 
not  at  fault,  but  only  our  theories.  There  is 
a  fluctuating  mystery  about  all  that  happens 
in  the  theatre,  and  perhaps  this  indefinable 
power  is  what  most  attaches  us  to  the  place. 
It  is  not  a  place  of  learning,  nor  of  scholar 
ship,  nor  of  information  or  ethics,  nor  even  of 
such  flights  of  mind  as  accurate  thought  can 
always  follow.  It  is  a  place  of  enchantment. 


79 


NORWAY 


NORWAY. 

IN  Norway  people  live  in  small  houses  in 
which  the  air  is  very  bad.  The  people  neither 
wash  nor  laugh,  and  common  sense  is  un 
known  among  them.  Each  man  or  woman 
is  endowed  with  one  idea,  and  that  is  suffi 
cient  for  each.  He  is  satisfied  with  it,  and 
he  is  never  seen  without  it.  So  that  anyone 
may  always  very  easily  recognize  the  different 
characters  of  a  Norwegian  play.  One  knows 
that  each  idea  is  very  significant,  very  logical, 
and  very  much  to  be  noted.  Thus,  if  a 
character  has  the  idea  of  walking  upstairs 
backward  instead  of  forward,  one  feels 
perfectly  satisfied  about  that  person.  He  is 
always  talking  about  his  mania,  and  one 
knows  that,  in  the  end,  some  terrible  and 
logical  calamity  is  going  to  result  from  the 
perverse  habit  with  which  stepdame  nature 
has  endowed  him.  For  all  people  in  Norway 
are  stepchildren  of  nature,  and  are  barely 
endowed  with  sufficient  complexity  of  in 
telligence  to  prevent  them  from  swallowing 
poison,  falling  down  wells,  or  walking  over 
precipices.  Indeed  they  do  all  these  things, 
the  moment  the  well  or  the  poison  or  the 

83 


NORWAY 

precipice    comes    between    themselves    and 
their  favorite  hobby. 

I  saw  a  very  nice  play  the  other  day  about 
these  people.  If  was  about  a  very  nice 
elderly  man  and  his  elderly  sister,  Jake  Borg 
and  Elisa  Borg.  Jake  loved  his  sister,  and 
his  sister  loved  her  cat — a  Maltese  cat  of  the 
largest  variety.  Both  Jake  and  Elisa  spent  an 
hour  or  so  each  day  in  talking  about  the  cat, 
and  of  how  dangerous  it  was  for  the  cat  to  insist 
upon  walking  on  the  back  fence  during  the 
very  hours  when  Jake  was  practising  with 
his  flint-lock  at  a  target  erected  upon  the 
fence.  Jake,  it  appears,  was  a  member 
of  the  village  patriotic  shooting  society  and 
was  the  president  of  it,  and  his  whole  heart 
and  soul  were  wrapped  up  in  it.  The  society 
used  flint-locks  rather  than  percussion  caps 
because  the  time  occupied  by  the  explosion, 
being  quite  long  with  flint-locks,  the  nerves  of 
the  patriots  would  be  the  better  steeled  to 
bear  the  noise.  Thus,  during  the  forenoon, 
for  several  years,  the  devoted  couple  discussed 
the  question  whether  or  not  the  pet  cat  would 
be  hit  by  the  pet  bullets;  and  it  became  alarm 
ingly  evident  that  such  would  be  the  case, 
unless  one  or  the  other  of  the  afflicted  persons 
should  desist  from  the  practice  of  his  hobby. 
There  were  various  other  people  who  came 
in  to  help  the  principal  characters  in  the 
play  to  discuss  the  peril.  Neither  party  in  the 
84 


NORWAY 

great  conflict  would  budge  from  his  principl< 
the  one,  for  patriotic  reasons,  the  other  out 
of  Christian  piety  and  affection  for  dumb 
animals. 

The  anguish  of  the  situation  became  so 
intense  that  it  was  almost  a  relief  when  the 
cat  was  shot  by  the  heroic  burgher  in  the 
very  shot  by  which  he  completed  a  hundred 
consecutive  bull's-eyes — or  would  have  com 
pleted  them,  but  for  the  fated  animal.  Jake's 
life  was  ruined  by  this  failure;  as  Elisa's  was 
ruined  by  the  loss  of  her  companion,  and 
the  village  life  was  ruined  because  there 
remained  nothing  to  talk  about  thereafter. 
So,  all  the  inhabitants  of  that  Norwegian 
hamlet  shut  their  windows  tight,  and  con 
tinued  each  in  the  pursuit  of  his  own  serious 
hobby,  neither  washing,  nor  smiling,  nor 
making  allowance  for  the  hobbies  of  the 
rest,  but  only  grinding  out  remorsely  the 
magnificent  tragic  material  of  Norwegian  life. 


DR.   HOWE 


DR.  HOWE 

THERE  are  men  who  have  great  fame  during 
their  lives,  and  then  disappear  forever ;  and  there 
are  others  who  live  unknown  to  their  contem 
poraries,  and  then  emerge  upon  posterity,  and 
cast  back  a  perpetual  reproach  upon  their 
own  times  which  were  not  worthy  of  them.  To 
neither  of  these  classes  does  Dr.  Howe  belong; 
for  he  was  a  hero  in  his  own  day,  and  has  left 
behind  him  so  many  memorials  of  his  mind 
and  times  that  he  can  never  become  wholly 
lost  to  the  world.  He  belongs  rather  to  that 
class  of  reappearing  reputations  which  die 
through  successive  resurrections,  and  distrib 
ute  their  message  to  humanity  through  many 
undulations  of  loss  and  rediscovery. 

One  cannot  tell  where  to  set  the  boundary  to 
such  men's  influence,  for  while  the  student 
writes,  the  shadow  moves.  The  scribbler 
who  is  assigning  values  and  labels  to  history 
becomes  an  instrument  in  the  hands  of  his 
subject,  and  something  is  accomplished 
through  him  which  is  beyond  his  own  horizon. 
This  is  the  mechanism  through  which  great 
men  reach  the  world.  The  present  age  has 
all  but  forgotten  Dr.  Howe:  his  name  has 


DR.   HOWE 

for  some  years  been  on  the  road  to 
oblivion.  For  I  do  not  count  as  fame  the 
dusty  memorials  and  busts  of  dead  philan 
thropists  which  adorn  and  disfigure  college  li 
braries.  Their  honored  and  obliterated  features 
carry  something,  but  it  is  not  fame.  They  are 
like  neglected  finger-boards  which  have  fallen 
by  the  wayside  and  are  calmly  undergoing 
unimaginable  dissolution  through  the  soft 
handling  of  the  elements.  Wordsworth  might 
have  addressed  a  sonnet  to  these  men  had  he 
not  been  so  preoccupied  with  external  nature. 
"Behold,  this  man  was  once  the  sign-board  of 
classical  learning,  this  of  electricity,  this  of 
natural  science."  But  Wordsworth  would 
have  been  obliged  first  to  rub  the  moss  from 
the  inscriptions. 

Some  years  ago  it  looked  as  if  Dr.  Howe, 
the  great  and  famous  Dr.  Howe,  had  fallen 
by  the  wayside  of  progress  and  was  to  remain 
forever  a  dead  finger-post  and  a  reminiscence 
in  the  history  of  the  world's  care  for  the  blind. 
To-day  a  new  image  of  him  is  beginning  to 
form  above  the  mass  of  letters,  documents,  and 
written  reports  which  his  busy  life  bequeathed 
to  the  garret,  and  in  which  his  daughter,  Laura 
E.  Richards,  has  recently  quarried  for  a  book 
of  memoirs.  She  has  produced  two  large 
volumes  which  give  us  Dr.  Howe  from  the 
intimate  side  of  his  character,  and  in  a  way 
that  no  man  can  be  publicly  known  to  his  con- 
90 


DR.   HOWE 

temporaries.  It  is  of  this  new  image  or  vita 
nuova  of  Dr.  Howe  that  I  mean  to  speak. 

There  is  a  variety  of  interest  in  his  life,  which 
shatters  the  picture  of  a  philanthropist  and 
leaves  in  its  place  the  picture  of  an  adventurer 
— an  unselfish  adventurer;  that  is  to  say,  a 
sort  of  Theseus  or  Hercules,  an  unaccountable 
person  who  visits  this  world  from  somewhere 
else.  After  all,  this  is  the  impression  he  made 
upon  his  own  times.  Perhaps  we  are  getting 
a  breeze  of  the  same  wind  that  blew  through 
him  in  life:  I  cannot  tell.  At  any  rate,  it  was 
not  to  Laura  Bridgman  only  that  Howe  was 
sent  into  the  world.  I  confess  to  a  feeling 
that  he  was  one  of  the  greatest  of  Americans 
and  one  of  the  best  men  who  ever  lived. 

Seventy  years  ago  his  name  was  known  to 
everybody  in  the  civilized  world.  The  part 
he  took  in  the  Greek  Revolution  (1825-29) 
had  made  him  famous  while  still  a  very 
young  man,  and  his  success  in  teaching  the 
blind  deaf-mute,  Laura  Bridgman,  (1837-41) 
seemed  at  the  time,  and  still  seems,  one  of  the 
great  triumphs  in  the  history  of  human  intel 
lect.  The  world  rang  with  it.  The  miracle 
was  done  in  the  sight  of  all  men,  and  humanity 
stood  on  the  benches  and  shouted  themselves 
blind  with  applause.  This  accomplishment, 
which  was  the  great  accomplishment  of  his  life, 
will  always  remain  Dr.  Howe's  trade-mark  and 
proverbial  significance;  but  other  parts  of  his 


DR.   HOWE 

life  almost  equal  it  in  permanent  value.  The 
historical  interest  of  the  Greek  Revolution, 
and  of  the  latter  half  of  the  anti-slavery  period, 
are  supplemented  by  the  scientific  interest  of 
all  Dr.  Howe's  philanthropic  work  and  by  the 
personal  interest  of  an  extraordinary  and 
unique  character. 

Samuel  Gridley  Howe  was  born  in  Boston 
in  1801,  and  was  thus  just  twenty  years  old 
when  the  Greek  Revolution  broke  out  in  1821. 
In  that  year  he  was  graduated  at  Brown  Univer 
sity,  Providence,  and  thereafter  studied  medi 
cine  for  three  years  in  Boston.  Byron's 
poems  had  prepared  the  youths  of  Europe 
and  of  America  for  the  Greek  struggle,  and 
Howe  was  one  of  the  young  men  who  re 
sponded  in  person  to  Byron's  final  call  to  arms. 
Howe  did  not  reach  Greece  till  a  few  months 
after  Byron's  death  at  Missolonghi  in  1824. 
Howe  spent  six  years  in  campaigning  with 
the  Greek  patriots.  He  had  enlisted  in  the 
capacity  of  a  surgeon;  but  the  exigencies 
of  the  primitive  and  very  severe  guerilla 
warfare  tended  to  obliterate  official  rank 
and  to  throw  the  work  upon  those  who  had 
executive  ability.  The  war  was  a  scramble 
of  patriot  banditti  and  peasant  militia  against 
Mahommetan  ruffians.  The  name  of  Greece, 
the  name  of  Byron,  the  beauty  of  the  scenery 
in  whose  midst  the  war  proceeded,  the  heart 
rending  nature  of  the  struggle  and  its  happy 
92 


DR.    HOWE 

outcome,  all  combine  to  make  this  the  most 
romantic  war  in  history.  It  was  one  of  the  last 
wars  before  that  effective  development  of  steam 
and  gunpowder  which  have  forever  merged 
tlje  picturesque  in  the  horrible. 

The  young  Howe  kept  a  journal,  which 
shows  a  character  entirely  at  one  with  his 
rapturously  poetic  surroundings.  Before  I 
had  read  this  journal  I  did  not  know  that  the 
United  States  had  ever  produced  a  man  of 
this  type,  the  seventeenth  century  navigator, 
whose  daily  life  is  made  up  of  hair-breadth 
escapes  and  who  writes  in  the  style  of  Robin 
son  Crusoe. — " Passed  a  pirate  boat,  but 
he  saw  too  many  marks  of  preparation  about 
us  to  attack  us;  in  fact,  if  vessels  only  knew 
what  cowards  these  pirates  are  they  would 
never  be  robbed,  for  the  least  resistance  will 
keep  them  off.  Give  me  a  vessel  with  moder 
ately  high  sides,  two  light  guns  and  twelve 
resolute  men,  and  I  would  pledge  my  all  on 
sailing  about  every  port  of  the  archipelago 
and  beating  off  every  vessel  which  approaches. 
The  pirates  always  come  in  long,  light,  open 
boats  which  pull  from  sixteen  to  thirty-six 
and  forty  oars.  They  sometimes  have  a 
gun,  and  always  select  calm  weather  to  attack. 
But  how  to  get  up  the  sides  of  a  vessel  if  twelve 
men  with  cutlasses  were  to  oppose  them."  .  .  . 

"But  it  was  a  great  fault  on  the  part  of 
commanders  of  vessels  of  war  not  to  have 

93 


DR.   HOWE 

made  examples.  A  few  bodies  hanging  at 
their  yard-arms,  and  displayed  round  among 
the  islands,  would  have  had  more  effect  than 
all  they  have  done."  .  .  . 

There  we  have  the  reality  of  which  Steven 
son's  tales  are  the  reflection  and  the  tradi 
tional  imitation.  Again — "If  he  challenges, 
I  shall  have  my  choice  of  weapons.  I  am 
pretty  good  master  of  the  small  sword,  and 
think  I  could  contrive  to  disarm  him  and 
make  him  beg  on  his  knees,  for  I  am  sure  he 
is  one  of  the  most  arrant  cowards."  .  .  . 
Again — "  They  passed  along  the  beach  at  full 
gallop  not  far  from  us,  and  I  gave  them  a  rifle 
ball  which  missed  them."  ...  In  another 
place—"  But  one  of  them  held  his  head  out  long 
enough  for  me  to  take  aim  at  it  and  level  him 
with  a  rifle  ball;  he  fell  sprawling  upon  his  face, 
and  I  hardly  know  whether  pleasure  or  pain 
predominated  in  my  mind  as  I  witnessed  his 
fall.  Said  I  'A  moment  more  and  I  may 
fall  in  the  same  way.'  "... 

On  another  occasion — "I  plied  my  rifle  as 
fast  as  possible,  and  luckily  was  not  called  to 
one  single  wounded  man,  they  being  sheltered 
by  the  high  sides  of  the  vessel."  ...  It  must 
be  remembered  that  inasmuch  as  Howe  was  a 
surgeon  he  had  no  right  to  be  fighting  at  all; 
but  dear  me!  we  are  on  the  Spanish  main  in 
Elizabeth's  time;  and,  as  Howe  observed  a 
few  days  later,  "  I  had  been  directed  to  keep 

94 


DR.   HOWE 

below,  but  the  scene  was  too  interesting  for 
a  young  man  to  lose  sight  of."  .  .  . 

There  was  a  touch  of  the  buccaneer  about 
Howe.  His  slight  tendency  toward  lawless 
ness  kept  cropping  out  all  through  his  life.  It 
appears  in  an  assault  which  he  made  on  a  senti 
nel  at  Rome  in  1844,  and  in  all  his  anti-slavery 
work — of  which  later.  A  great  descriptive 
power  is  revealed  in  this  journal,  which  he  kept 
during  the  months  when  he  often  slept  with 
his  head  on  a  stone  and  subsisted  on  fried 
wasps.  As  an  example  of  vivid  sketching 
take  the  following : 

"  On  the  road  I  had  met  bodies  of  peasantry 
of  the  lower  class  called  Vlachoi  (Wallach- 
ians),  driving  before  them  all  their  little  stock, 
perhaps  a  few  dozen  sheep,  as  many  goats,  a 
donkey  and  a  half-dozen  fowls,  all  guarded  by 
a  pair  of  fine-looking  mountain  dogs  and  fol 
lowed  by  the  father  lugging  his  rough  capote, 
with  gun  in  hand  and  an  old  pistol  and  knife 
in  his  belt,  and  the  mother  with  her  baby 
lashed  to  her  back  in  a  bread-trough,  a  kettle 
on  her  head,  and  sundry  articles  of  furniture  in 
her  hands.  A  troop  of  dirty  ragged  boys  and 
girls,  brought  up  the  rear,  each  bearing  a  load 
of  baggage  proportionate  to  their  strength, 
a  little  donkey  carrying  all  the  rest  of  the 
furniture  and  farming  tools,  in  fine,  all  their 
goods  and  chattels.  Land  they  have  none; 
they  feed  their  flocks  on  the  high  mountains 

95 


DR.    HOWE 

in  summer,  and  now  on  the  approach  of  winter 
they  descend  to  the  warmer  valleys,  where  they 
build  a  wigwam  and  pass  the  winter.".  .  . 
Sieges  and  battles  on  land  and  sea,  assassi 
nations  and  conspiracies,  pictures  of  natural 
scenery  and  domestic  life,  of  happiness,  pathos, 
humor,  heroism, — the  diaries  abound  in  all 
such  things;  and  the  pictures  often  burn  and 
glow  and  sparkle.  I  cannot  tell  whether  this 
sparkle  is  a  literary  quality,  or  a  ray  from 
Howe's  character,  or  an  illusion  of  my  own. 
But  certainly,  something  remarkable  appears 
in  the  step  and  carriage  of  the  young  man. 
He  does  not  stay  in  the  book,  he  walks  into  the 
room  where  you  are  reading.  The  substance 
and  setting  of  these  Greek  journals  at  times 
remind  us  of  George  Borrow's  books;  but 
Howe's  writing  is  done  without  literary  inten 
tion  and  therefore  speaks  from  a  more  unusual 
depth.  No  time  has  been  spent  over  these 
jottings,  the  recorder  is  hardly  more  respon 
sible  for  them  than  the  pen  that  writes  them 
down.  The  scenes  have  whirled  themselves 
upon  the  paper.  Howe  was  always  somewhat 
wanting  in  the  reverence  for  letters  which 
obtains  in  Boston.  He  regarded  himself  as 
inferior  in  literary  attainment  to  several  of  his 
friends.  He  had,  however,  the  descriptive 
power  sometimes  found  in  condottieri.  It  is 
the  thrilling  stuff  they  deal  in  that  endows  these 
men  with  such  talent.  I  cannot  forbear  tran- 


DR.   HOWE 

scribing  a  passage  from  a  very  different  style  of 
adventurer,  Trelawney.  It  does  not  concern 
Howe  directly;  but  it  may  serve  as  a  sample 
page  from  the  Greek  revolutionary  period. 
The  passage  is  quoted  by  Sanborn  in  his  Life 
of  Howe. 

"On  our  way  from  Argos  to  Corinth,  in 
1823,  we  passed  through  the  denies  of  Der- 
venakia;  our  road  was  a  mere  mule-path  for 
about  two  leagues,  winding  along  in  the  bed  of 
a  brook,  flanked  by  rugged  precipices.  In 
this  gorge,  and  a  more  rugged  path  above  it,  a 
large  Ottoman  force,  principally  cavalry,  had 
been  stopped  in  the  previous  autumn,  by 
barricades  of  rocks  and  trees,  and  slaughtered 
like  droves  of  cattle  by  the  wild  and  exasper 
ated  Greeks.  It  was  a  perfect  picture  of  the 
war,  and  told  its  own  story;  the  sagacity  of 
the  nimble-footed  Greeks  and  the  hopeless 
stupidity  of  the  Turkish  commanders  were 
palpable.  Detached  from  the  heaps  of  dead 
we  saw  the  skeletons  of  some  bold  riders,  who 
had  attempted  to  scale  the  acclivities,  still 
astride  the  skeletons  of  their  horses,  and  in  the 
rear,  as  if  in  the  attempt  to  back  out  of  the 
fray,  the  bleached  bones  of  the  negroes'  hands 
still  holding  the  hair  ropes  attached  to  the 
skulls  of  the  camels — death,  like  sleep,  is  a 
strange  posture-master.  There  were  grouped 
in  a  narrow  space  5,000  or  more  skeletons  of 
men,  horses,  camels,  and  mules;  vultures  had 

7  97 


DR.   HOWE 

eaten  their  flesh,  and  the  sun  had  bleached  their 
bones."  ...  Is  not  this  picture  worthy  of 
the  prophet  Ezekiel?  It  was  among  such 
scenes  as  this  that  the  Greek  Revolution 
went  forward. 

In  1827-8  Dr.  Howe  concluded  that  the 
best  service  he  could  render  the  Greeks  was 
to  go  to  America  and  procure  help.  He  came 
to  America,  and  went  about  holding  public 
meetings  and  pleading  for  the  starving  Greeks. 
Great  enthusiasm  was  excited,  and  money, 
food,  and  clothing  was  generously  contributed. 
Howe  took  charge  of  a  vessel  laden  with 
provisions  and  clothing,  and  hastening  back 
to  Greece,  arrived  in  time  to  prevent  thousands 
from  starving.  "These  American  contri 
butions/'  he  says,  "went  directly  to  the 
people;  and  their  effect  was  very  great,  not 
only  by  relieving  from  hunger  and  cold,  but 
by  inspiring  courage  and  hope.  I  made 
several  depots  in  different  places;  I  freighted 
small  vessels  and  ran  up  the  bays  with  them. 
The  people  came  trooping  from  their  hiding 
places,  men,  women,  children,  hungry,  cold, 
ragged  and  dirty.  They  received  rations  of 
flour,  corn,  biscuit,  pork,  etc.,  and  were  clad  in 
the  warm  garments  made  up  by  American 
women.  It  was  one  of  the  happiest  sights  a 
man  could  witness;  one  of  the  happiest 
agencies  he  could  discharge.  They  came, 
sometimes  twenty,  thirty,  forty  miles,  on  foot, 


DR.   HOWE 

to  get  rations  and  clothing.  Several  vessels 
followed  mine  and  distributions  were  made. 

"An  immense  number  of  families  from 
Attica,  from  Psara,  and  from  other  Islands,  had 
taken  refuge  in  .^Egina,  and  there  was  the  most 
concentrated  suffering.  I  established  a  main 
depot  there,  and  commenced  a  systematic 
distribution  of  the  provisions  and  clothing. 
As  the  Greeks  were  all  idle,  I  concluded  it 
was  not  best  to  give  alms  except  to  the  feeble; 
but  I  commenced  a  public  work  on  which 
men,  women,  and  children  could  be  occupied. 
The  harbor  of  ^Egina  was  not  a  natural  one, 
but  the  work  of  the  old  Greeks.  The  long 
walls  projecting  into  the  sea  for  breakwaters 
were  in  pretty  good  condition,  but  the  land 
side  of  the  harbor  was  nearly  ruined  from  being 
filled  up  with  debris  and  washings  from  the 
town. 

"I  got  some  men  who  had  a  little  'gump 
tion'  and  built  a  coffer-dam  across  the  inner 
side  of  the  harbor.  Then  we  bailed  out  the 
water,  and,  digging  down  to  get  a  foundation, 
laid  a  solid  wall,  which  made  a  beautiful 
and  substantial  quay,  which  stands  to  this 
day,  and  is  called  the  American  Molos  or 
Mole.  In  this  work  as  many  as  five  hundred 
people,  men,  women,  and  children,  ordinarily 
worked;  on  some  days  as  many  as  seven 
hundred,  I  think."  .  .  . 

Encouraged  by  the  success  of  his    mole, 

99 


DR.    HOWE 

Dr.  Howe  determined  upon  a  more  ambitious 
venture. — "  I  applied  to  the  government, 
and  obtained  a  large  tract  of  land  upon  the 
Isthmus  of  Corinth,  where  I  founded  a  colony 
of  exiles.  We  put  up  cottages,  procured  seed, 
cattle,  and  tools,  and  the  foundations  of  a 
flourishing  village  were  laid.  Capo  d'Istria 
had  encouraged  me  in  the  plan  of  the  colony, 
and  made  some  promises  of  help.  The 
government  granted  ten  thousand  cstrem- 
mata'  of  land  to  be  free  from  taxes  for  five 
years;  but  they  could  not  give  much  practical 
help.  I  was  obliged  to  do  everything,  and 
had  only  the  supplies  sent  out  by  the  American 
committees  to  aid  me.  The  colonists,  however, 
cooperated,  and  everything  went  on  finely. 
We  got  cattle  and  tools,  ploughed  and  pre 
pared  the  earth,  got  up  a  school-house  and 
a  church. 

"Everything  went  on  finely,  and  we  ex 
tended  our  domain  over  to  the  neighboring 
port  of  Cenchraea,  where  we  had  cultivated 
ground  and  a  harbor.  This  was  perhaps 
the  happiest  part  of  my  life.  I  was  alone 
among  my  colonists,  who  were  all  Greeks. 
They  knew  I  wanted  to  help  them,  and  they 
let  me  have  my  own  way.  I  had  one  civilized 
companion  for  awhile,  David  Urquhart, 
the  eccentric  Englishman,  afterward  M.  P. 
and  pamphleteer.  I  had  to  journey  much  to 
and  from  Corinth,  Napoli,  etc.,  always  on 

100 


DR.   HOWE 

horseback,  or  in  boat,  and  often  by  night. 
It  was  a  time  and  place  where  law  was  not; 
and  sometimes  we  had  to  defend  ourselves 
against  armed  and  desperate  stragglers  from 
the  bands  of  soldiers  now  breaking  up.  We 
had  many  '  scrimmages/  and  I  had  several 
narrow  escapes  with  life. 

"  In  one  affair  Urquhart  showed  extraor 
dinary  pluck  and  courage,  actually  dis 
arming  and  taking  prisoner  two  robbers, 
and  marching  them  before  him  into  the 
village.  I  labored  here  day  and  night,  in 
season  and  out,  and  was  governor,  clerk, 
constable,  and  everything  but  patriarch;  for, 
though  I  was  young,  I  took  to  no  maiden,  nor 
ever  thought  about  womankind  but  once. 
The  government  (or  rather,  Capo  d'Istria, 
the  president)  treated  the  matter  liberally — 
for  a  Greek — and  did  what  he  could  to  help 
me."  .  .  . 

In  1844,  about  seventeen  years  after  the 
planting  of  this  Corinthian  colony  Howe 
returned  to  the  Isthmus  in  the  course  of  his 
wedding  journey.  "As  he  rode  through  the 
principal  street  of  the  village,"  says  Mrs. 
Howe,  "the  elder  people  began  to  take  note  of 
him  and  to  say  to  one  another  cThis  man 
looks  like  Howe/  At  length  they  cried, 
'It  must  be  Howe  himself!  His  horse  was 
surrounded  and  his  progress  stayed.  A  feast 
was  immediately  prepared  for  him  in  the 

101 


DR.   HOWE 

principal  house  of  the  place,  and  a  throng  of 
friends,  old  and  new,  gathered  round  him, 
eager  to  express  their  joy  in  seeing  him." 

So  let  us  leave  him  for  one  moment,  sur 
rounded  by  the  children  of  his  adoption, 
submitting  to  their  gratitude  as  Hercules 
might  have  submitted,  if  humanity  had  rec 
ognized  him  on  his  return  to  the  scene  of  an 
earthly  exploit, — let  us  leave  him,  I  say,  thus 
posed  for  the  monument  that  should  express 
his  whole  life's  work,  while  we  consider  what 
manner  of  man  he  was. 

At  whatever  point  you  examine  him,  you 
find  a  man  of  remarkable  energy  and  benev 
olence,  of  a  practical  turn  of  mind,  devoid 
of  mysticism  or  philosophic  curiosity,  a  man 
to  whom  the  word  is  a  very  plain  proposi 
tion,  whose  eyes  see  what  they  see  with  the 
power  of  microscopes,  and  are  blind  to  all 
else.  Dr.  Howe's  work  in  Greece  gives  a 
specimen,  a  prophetic  summary,  of  his  whole 
life-work,  that  is  to  say,  it  was  practical  aid 
to  those  laboring  under  disability.  The  dev 
astation  of  Greece  at  that  time  was  incredible. 
The  peasants  were  living  in  caves  and  hiding 
their  food  under  ground  from  the  guerillas. 
Dr.  Howe  goes  with  his  hands  full  of  supplies 
and  distributes  them,  turning  the  starving 
wretches  into  human  beings  again,  through 
his  methods,  and  through  his  power  of  organi 
zation.  One  is  reminded  by  turns  of  Ben- 
102 


DR.   HOWE 

jamin  Franklin  and  of  Prometheus,  in  reading 
of  the  astute  shifts  of  this  benevolent  despot, 
who  deals  with  men  as  if  they  were  children, 
coercing  them  into  thrift  and  decency.  Of 
course  the  circumstances  were  extraordinary, 
or  Howe's  peculiar  genius  could  not  have 
showed  itself  so  early.  A  man  of  genius  he 
was,  but  the  limitations  of  this  remarkable 
man's  mind  are  as  clear  cut  as  his  features, 
which  had  the  accuracy  of  bronze. 

Within  the  field  of  his  peculiar  activity  he 
is  a  great  genius.  Outside  of  that  field  he  was 
not  a  genius  at  all — as  will  appear  by  his 
political  course  in  1859.  His  mission  was  to 
deal  with  persons  laboring  under  a  disability, 
with  criminals,  paupers,  young  people — blind 
or  deaf  people,  idiots,  the  maimed  in  spirit, 
the  defective — the  people  who  have  no  chance, 
no  future,  no  hope.  These  were  the  persons 
to  whom  his  life  was  to  be  devoted :  the  Greek 
sufferers  were  merely  the  earliest  in  the 
series  of  persons  whom  Howe  pitied. 

He  has  left  behind  voluminous  papers  and 
reports,  and  in  them  lives  his  creed.  He  can 
hardly  open  his  mouth  without  saying  some 
thing  of  universal  application  to  all  defective 
persons  in  all  ages.  From  the  statement 
of  abstract  principles  to  the  details  of  ward 
management — whether  he  is  writing  advice 
to  an  anxious  mother  or  addressing  the  legis 
lature — there  is  no  side  of  the  subject  on 

103 


DR.   HOWE 

which  he  is  not  great.  His  attitude  toward 
defectives  and  his  point  of  view  about  them 
form  a  splinter  of  absolute  truth;  religion, 
morality,  practical  wisdom,  and  the  divinest 
longings  of  the  spirit  are  all  satisfied  by  it. 
The  sight  of  any  of  these  persons  aroused  in 
him  such  a  passion  of  benevolence,  such  a 
whirlwind  of  pity,  that  he  could  do  whatever 
was  necessary.  He  lifted  them  in  his  arms 
and  flew  away  with  them  like  an  angel.  It 
made  no  difference  that  the  cause  was  hope 
less.  He  would  labor  a  year  to  improve  the 
articulation  of  an  adult  idiot,  and  rejoice  as 
much  over  a  gain  of  two  vowels  as  if  he  had 
"X  given  a  new  art  to  mankind. 

As  has  been  seen,  Howe  was  originally 
attracted  to  the  Greek  cause  through  its  roman 
tic  and  historic  appeal;  but  the  poetry  and  the 
patriotism  of  the  Greek  Revolution  were,  for 
him,  soon  merged  in  philanthropy.  His 
work  in  the  Greek  cause  and  the  books  and 
papers  and  speeches  he  had  written  had  brought 
him  into  the  world's  eye.  He  returned  to  Amer 
ica  a  famous  man.  He  was  still  under  thirty 
years  of  age,  an  unambitious  man,  unaware 
that  he  was  in  any  way  remarkable.  He  did 
not  take  up  the  cause  of  the  blind  because  he 
felt  within  him  a  deep  desire,  a  God-given 
calling  to  help  the  blind,  but  because  the  cause 
of  the  blind  was  brought  to  his  notice  by  Dr. 
John  D.  Fisher,  and  other  gentlemen  in  Boston, 
104 


DR.   HOWE 

who  had  been  studying  the  methods  of  the 
Abbe*  Haiiy  in  Paris,  and  who  contemplated 
founding  a  school  for  the  blind  in  Boston.  It 
was  a  happy  hour  in  which  they  met  Howe; 
for  he  was  a  man  whose  response  to  any  call 
for  help  was  automatic. 

He  was  one  of  those  singular  men  in  whom 
we  can  trace  no  course  of  development.  Such 
as  they  are  in  early  manhood,  so  they  remain. 
It  is  interesting  to  bring  together  two  passages, 
one  from  the  beginning  and  the  other  from 
the  latter  half  of  his  life,  to  show  the  identity 
of  their  intellectual  content. 

The  following  is  from  Howe's  First  Report 
of  the  Blind  Asylum:  "Blindness  has  been 
in  all  ages  one  of  those  instruments  by  which  a 
mysterious  Providence  has  chosen  to  afflict 
man;  or  rather  it  has  not  seen  fit  to  extend  the 
blessing  of  sight  to  every  member  of  the  human 
family.  In  every  country  there  exists  a  large 
number  of  human  beings,  who  are  prevented 
by  want  of  sight  from  engaging  with  advantage 
in  the  pursuits  of  life,  and  who  are  thrown  upon 
the  charity  of  their  more  favored  fellows."  .  .  . 

The  following  is  from  the  monumental  justi 
fication  of  his  ideas  as  put  forth  in  the  Second 
Report  to  the  Massachusetts  State  Board  of 
Charities  in  1866: — 

"  Finally,  they  (the  board)  have  dwelt  upon 
the  importance  of  knowing  and  obeying  all  the 
natural  laws,  because  they  are  ordained  by 


DR.   HOWE 

our  beneficent  God  and  Father,  to  bind 
together  by  bonds  of  mutual  interest  and 
affection  all  the  children  of  His  great  human 
family;  and  to  prepare  them  here,  for  his  good 
will  and  pleasure  hereafter." 

The  thought  in  each  of  these  passages  is  the 
same.  Blindness,  deficiency,  in  fact  evil, 
are  to  be  accepted  as  part  of  the  divine  will. 
This  thought,  taken  in  conjunction  with  the 
conception  of  the  unity  of  human  nature, 
form  the  whole  of  Howe's  philosophy.  The 
conventional  language  of  piety  in  which  Howe 
generally  expresses  himself,  may  perhaps 
conceal  from  some  persons  the  first-hand  power 
of  his  nature.  He  seems  only  to  be  saying 
what  everybody  knows;  but  the  difference 
is  that  Howe  sees  the  truth  as  a  fact.  It  is 
not  so  much  a  philosophic  reality  or  abstraction 
as  a  first-hand  visual  perception,  always  new, 
always  reliable. 

The  different  specific  reforms  with  which 
Howe  is  to  be  credited  are  neither  deductions 
from  theory,  nor  the  summary  of  experiments 
made  by  him;  but  simply  things  seen  in  them 
selves  to  be  true.  They  can  all  of  them  be 
grouped  under  almost  any  one  of  Christ's 
sayings.  I  shall  return  to  this  subject  after 
speaking  of  Laura  Bridgman,  who  has  been 
waiting  too  long. 

The  early  history  of  the  Boston  Blind 
Asylum  is  like  a  great  mediaeval  romance — 
106 


DR.   HOWE 

voluminous,  glowing,  many-sided.  That  his 
tory  is  recorded  in  multitudinous  documents 
and  papers,  letters,  arguments,  reports,  anec 
dotes — the  whole  mass  of  them  being  il 
lumined  by  the  central  figure  of  Howe  who 
looms  through  the  story  like  Launcelot  or 
Parsifal.  Overpowering  indeed  is  this  liter 
ature,  and  it  ought  not  to  be  condensed.  One 
should  wander,  and  explore  and  browse  in  it. 
If  I  make  a  few  extracts  from  the  story,  it  is 
not  as  a  summary,  but  rather  as  an  adver 
tisement.  There  are  certain  events  that  you 
cannot  summarize,  but  only  introduce. 
The  texture  of  them  is  greater  than  any  con 
densation  can  make  it. 

The  New  England  Institution  for  the  Edu 
cation  of  the  Blind  began  its  work  in  1832. 
Howe,  having  neither  house  nor  fortune  of  his 
own,  received  a  few  blind  children  at  his 
father's  house  in  Boston.  Within  a  very  few 
years,  however,  the  school  was  properly 
housed  and  supported,  and  it  remained  ever  a 
favorite  with  the  public.  It  was  not  until 
1837  that  news  was  brought  to  Howe  of  the 
existence  of  Laura  Bridgman,  a  blind  deaf- 
mute  aged  seven,  then  living  with  her  parents 
on  a  New  Hampshire  farm.  He  made  a 
journey  to  New  Hampshire  to  visit  her,  and 
through  good  fortune  was  accompanied  by 
Longfellow,  Rufus  Choate,  George  Hilliard, 
and  Dr.  Samuel  Eliot.  The  friends  waited  at 
107 


DR.   HOWE 

Hanover  while  Howe  visited  the  Bridgman 
farmhouse  in  quest  of  his  prize.  "He  won 
it,  and  came  back  to  the  hotel  triumphant," 
says  Dr.  Eliot,  "I  perfectly  recollect  his 
exultation  at  having  secured  her,  and  the 
impression  he  made  on  me  of  chivalric 
benevolence." 

Laura  Bridgman  had  lost  her  sight  and 
hearing  at  the  age  of  two,  through  scarlet 
fever;  and  when  she  reached  the  school  in 
Boston  was  blind,  deaf,  dumb,  and  "without 
that  distinct  consciousness  of  individual  exist 
ence  which  is  developed  by  the  exercise  of  the 
senses."  She  was,  nevertheless,  a  very  re 
markable  being,  sensitive,  passionate,  and 
highly  organized.  Upon  being  transferred  to 
the  school  "she  seemed  quite  bewildered 
at  first,  but  soon  grew  contented,  and  began 
to  explore  her  new  dwelling.  Her  little 
hands  were  continually  stretched  out,  and  her 
tiny  fingers  in  constant  motion,  like  the 
feelers  of  an  insect.  She  was  left  for  several 
days  to  form  acquaintance  with  the  little  blind 
girls,  and  to  become  familiar  with  her  new 
home." 

Within  two  months  Howe  was  able  to  write 
to  Laura's  father — "I  have  succeeded  in 
making  her  understand  several  words  in  raised 
print,  and  I  am  very  sanguine  in  the  hope  that 
she  will  learn  to  read,  and  perhaps  to  express 
her  wants  in  writing."  .  .  .  Such  were  the 
108 


DR.   HOWE 

beginnings  of  that  remarkable  intimacy  which 
was  fraught  with  so  much  consequence  to  the 
world. 

The  process  by  which  Laura  Bridgman  was 
taught  the  alphabet  was  in  principle  the  same 
as  that  now  often  employed  in  teaching 
ordinary  children;  that  is  to  say,  certain  words 
are  first  given  to  the  child  as  unities,  and  the 
child  is  led  to  discover  the  letters  by  thereafter 
himself  dissolving  the  words  into  component 
letters.  "I  had  to  trust,  however,  to  some 
chance  effort  of  mine,  causing  her  to  perceive 
the  analogy  between  the  signs  which  I  gave 
her,  and  the  things  for  which  they  stood. 
.  .  .  The  first  experiments  were  made  by 
pasting  upon  several  common  articles,  such 
as  keys,  spoons,  knives,  and  the  like,  little 
paper  labels  on  which  the  name  of  the  article 
had  been  printed  in  raised  letters.  The  child 
sat  down  with  her  teachers  and  was  easily 
led  to  feel  these  labels,  and  examine  them 
curiously.  So  keen  was  the  sense  of  touch  in 
her  tiny  fingers  that  she  immediately  per 
ceived  that  the  crooked  lines  in  the  word 
KEY,  differed  as  much  in  form  from  the 
crooked  lines  in  the  word  SPOON  as  one  article 
differed  from  the  other. 

"Next,  similar  labels,  on  detached  pieces  of 

paper,  were  put  into  her  hands,  and  now  she 

observed  that  the  raised  letters  on  these  labels 

resembled  those  pasted  upon  the  articles.  ,  ,  . 

109 


DR.   HOWE 

"The  next  step  was  to  give  a  knowledge  of 
the  component  parts  of  the  complex  sign,  BOOK, 
for  instance.  This  was  done  by  cutting  up 
the  labels  into  four  parts,  each  part  having 
one  letter  upon  it.  These  were  first  arranged 
in  order,  b-o-o-k,  until  she  had  learned  it, 
then  mingled  up  together,  then  rearranged,  she 
feeling  her  teacher's  hand  all  the  time,  and 
eager  to  begin  and  try  to  solve  a  new  step  in 
this  strange  puzzle. 

"Slowly  and  patiently,  day  after  day,  and 
week  after  week,  exercises  like  these  went  on, 
as  much  time  being  spent  at  them  as  the  child 
could  give  without  fatigue.  Hitherto  there 
had  been  nothing  very  encouraging;  not  much 
more  success  than  in  teaching  a  very  intelligent 
dog  a  variety  of  tricks.  But  we  were  approach 
ing  the  moment  when  the  thought  would  flash 
upon  her  that  all  these  were  efforts  to  establish 
a  means  of  communication  between  her 
thoughts  and  ours."  .  .  . 

"The  poor  child  had  sat  in  mute  amaze 
ment,  and  patiently  imitated  everything  her 
teacher  did;  but  now  the  truth  began  to  flash 
upon  her,  her  intellect  began  to  work,  she 
perceived  that  here  was  a  way  by  which  she 
could  herself  make  up  a  sign  of  anything  that 
was  in  her  own  mind,  and  show  it  to  another 
mind,  and  at  once  her  countenance  lighted 
up  with  a  human  expression;  it  was  no  longer 
a  dog  or  parrot — it  was  an  immortal  spirit, 
no 


DR.   HOWE 

eagerly  seizing  upon  a  new  link  of  union  with 
other  spirits!  I  could  almost  fix  upon  the 
moment  when  this  truth  dawned  upon  her 
mind,  and  spread  its  light  to  her  countenance; 
I  saw  that  the  great  obstacle  was  overcome, 
and  that  henceforward  nothing  but  patience 
and  persevering,  plain  and  straightforward 
efforts  were  to  be  used."  .  .  . 

The  visit  of  Laura's  mother  to  her  daughter 
at  the  Institution  must  be  chronicled,  not  only 
because  of  the  singular  beauty  of  Dr.  Howe's 
description;  but  because  it  shows  an  attitude 
on  his  part  of  welcome  toward  the  parent, 
reverence  for  home  influence,  which  is  seldom 
found  in  managers  of  institutions.  The 
school-teacher  and  the  director  in  a  reforma 
tory  generally  regard  the  parent  as  their 
enemy.  But  with  Howe  it  was  different. 
He  seems  really  to  have  been  able  to  shed  a 
domestic  atmosphere  through  his  Institution. 
He  merged  his  own  family  life  into  the 
Institution's  life,  and  yet  enriched  his  own 
hearth  thereby.  This  is  an  accomplishment 
which  can  neither  be  understood  nor  imitated. 
It  was  a  gift. 

"  During  this  year  and  six  months  after 
she  had  left  home,  her  mother  came  to  visit 
her,  and  the  scene  of  their  meeting  was  an 
interesting  one.  The  mother  stood  some  time 
gazing  with  overflowing  eyes  upon  her  unfor 
tunate  child,  who,  all  unconscious  of  her 
in 


DR.   HOWE 

presence,  was  playing  about  the  room.  Pres 
ently  Laura  ran  against  her,  and  at  once  be 
gan  feeling  of  her  hands,  examining  her  dress, 
and  trying  to  find  out  if  she  knew  her;  but 
not  succeeding  in  this,  she  turned  away  as 
from  a  stranger,  and  the  poor  woman  could 
not  conceal  the  pang  she  felt  at  finding  that 
her  beloved  child  did  not  know  her. 

"She  then  gave  Laura  a  string  of  beads 
which  she  used  to  wear  at  home,  which  were 
recognized  by  the  child  at  once,  who,  with 
much  joy,  put  them  around  her  neck,  and 
sought  me  eagerly  to  say  she  understood  the 
string  was  from  home.  The  mother  tried 
to  caress  her,  but  poor  Laura  repelled  her, 
preferring  to  be  with  her  acquaintances."  .  .  . 
"The  distress  of  the  mother  was  now  painful 
to  behold;  for,  although  she  had  feared  that 
she  should  not  be  recognized,  the  painful 
reality  of  being  treated  with  cold  indifference 
by  a  darling  child  was  too  much  for  woman's 
nature  to  bear. 

"After  a  while,  on  the  mother  taking  hold 
of  her  again,  a  vague  idea  seemed  to  flit 
across  Laura's  mind  that  this  could  not  be  a 
stranger;  she  therefore  felt  of  her  hands  very 
eagerly,  while  her  countenance  assumed  an 
expression  of  intense  interest.  She  became 
very  pale,  and  then  suddenly  red ;  hope  seemed 
struggling  with  doubt  and  anxiety,  and  never 
were  contending  emotions  more  strongly 
112 


DR.   HOWE 

painted  upon  the  human  face.  At  this 
moment  of  painful  uncertainty,  the  mother 
drew  her  close  to  her  side  and  kissed  her 
fondly;  when  at  once  the  truth  flashed  upon 
the  child,  and  all  mistrust  and  anxiety  dis 
appeared  from  her  face,  as  with  an  expres 
sion  of  exceeding  joy  she  eagerly  nestled  to 
the  bosom  of  her  parent,  and  yielded  herself 
to  her  fond  embraces."  .  .  . 

"I  had  watched  the  whole  scene  with 
intense  interest,  being  desirous  of  learning 
from  it  all  I  could  of  the  workings  of  her  mind; 
but  I  now  left  them  to  indulge  unobserved 
those  delicious  feelings  which  those  who  have 
known  a  mother's  love  may  conceive,  but 
which  cannot  be  expressed."  .  .  . 

Laura's  progress  was  so  rapid  that  she 
became  a  world  wonder  and  took  Howe  in 
her  wake  into  a  new  province  of  fame.  It 
must  not  be  thought  that  Laura  Bridgman 
was  Howe's  only  preoccupation.  In  1841 
Laura  formed  a  strong  friendship  with  Oliver 
Caswell,  a  blind  deaf-mute  of  eight  who  was 
brought  to  the  Asylum. 

"  Another  important  friendship  of  her  child 
hood,"  says  Mrs.  Richards,  "was  that  which 
she  formed  with  Oliver  Caswell,  a  blind  deaf- 
mute  boy  whom  my  father  discovered  and 
brought  to  the  Institution  in  1841.  He  was 
then  eight  years  old,  a  comely  and  healthy 
child,  blind  and  deaf  from  early  infancy,  and 
8  113 


DR.   HOWE 

had  received  no  special  instruction."  .  .  . 
"Laura  herself,"  says  Dr.  Howe,  "took 
great  interest  and  pleasure  in  assisting  those 
who  undertook  the  tedious  task  of  instructing 
him.  She  loved  to  take  his  brawny  hand 
with  her  slender  fingers,  and  show  him  how  to 
shape  the  mysterious  signs  which  were  to 
become  to  him  keys  of  knowledge  and  methods 
of  expressing  his  wants,  his  feelings,  and  his 
thoughts.  .  .  .  Patiently,  trustingly,  without 
knowing  why  or  wherefore,  he  willingly  sub 
mitted  to  the  strange  process.  Curiosity,  some 
times  amounting  to  wonder,  was  depicted  on  his 
countenance,  over  which  smiles  would  spread 
ever  and  anon;  and  he  would  laugh  heartily 
as  he  comprehended  some  new  fact,  or  got 
hold  of  a  new  idea. 

"No  scene  in  a  long  life  has  left  more  vivid 
and  pleasant  impressions  upon  my  mind  than 
did  that  of  these  two  young  children  of  nature 
helping  each  other  to  work  their  way  through 
the  thick  wall  which  cut  them  off  from  intelli 
gible  and  sympathetic  relations  with  all  their 
fellow-creatures.  They  must  have  felt  as 
if  immured  in  a  dark  and  silent  cell,  through 
chinks  in  the  wall  of  which  they  got  a  few 
vague  and  incomprehensible  signs  of  the 
existence  of  persons  like  themselves  in  form 
and  nature.  Would  that  the  picture  could  be 
drawn  vividly  enough  to  impress  the  minds 
of  others  as  strongly  and  pleasantly  as  it  did 
114 


DR.   HOWE 

my  own!  I  seem  now  to  see  the  two,  sitting 
side  by  side  at  a  school  desk,  with  a  piece  of 
pasteboard,  embossed  with  tangible  signs 
representing  letters,  before  them  and  under  their 
hands.  I  see  Laura  grasping  one  of  Oliver's 
stout  hands  with  her  long  graceful  fingers, 
and  guiding  his  forefinger  along  the  outline 
while,  with  her  other  hand,  she  feels  the 
changes  in  the  features  of  his  face,  to  find 
whether,  by  any  motion  of  the  lips  or  expand 
ing  smile,  he  shows  any  sign  of  understanding 
the  lesson :  while  her  own  handsome  and  ex 
pressive  face  is  turned  eagerly  toward  his,  every 
feature  of  her  contenance  absolutely  radiant 
with  intense  emotions,  among  which  curiosity 
and  hope  shine  most  brightly.  Oliver,  with 
his  head  thrown  a  little  back,  shows  curiosity 
amounting  to  wonder;  and  his  parted  lips  and 
relaxing  facial  muscles  express  keen  pleasure, 
until  they  beam  with  that  fun  and  drollery 
which  always  characterize  him."  .  .  . 

It  is  Howe,  the  former  buccaneer,  who 
thus  sits  watching  the  children.  He  is  now 
forty  years  of  age  and  has  still  thirty-five 
years  of  incessant  activity  ahead  of  him— 
activity  in  every  field  of  practical  education. 

The  brilliancy  of  the  Laura  Bridgman 
episode  has  a  little  dimmed  the  rest  of  his 
work.  The  supposed  philosophical  import 
ance  of  the  thing,  and  its  picturesque,  pathetic 
aspect  made  it  almost  like  the  discovery  of 


DR.   HOWE 

America  or  communication  with  Mars.  We 
can  to-day  hardly  remember  or  imagine  what 
emotion  the  teacher  of  Laura  Bridgman  called 
forth  all  over  the  world.  Looked  at  in  retro 
spect,  this  brilliant  achievement  is  enmeshed  in 
a  whole  life-work  of  activity  for  the  dependent 
classes,  much  of  which  is  almost  as  remarkable 
as  the  Bridgman  episode.  Prison  reform, 
school  reform,  care  of  the  insane,  care  of 
paupers,  reformatories  for  the  young,  trade 
schools  for  the  blind,  every  possible  effort  of 
a  man  to  help  his  less  fortunate  brother — these 
are  the  subjects  to  which  Dr.  Howe  devoted 
his  life. 

The  episodes  of  conflict,  of  legislative 
struggle,  of  school-board  clash  and  educa 
tional  campaign  of  which  that  life  was  made 
up,  all  have  the  enduring  interest  that  clings 
to  scenes  which  are  lighted  up  by  a  true 
light — things  which  have  been  seen  in  their 
passage  by  the  eye  of  genius.  Not  by  their 
own  virtue,  but  by  this  vision  do  they  live. 
Howe's  central  thesis  is  thus  given  in  his 
own  words  by  Sanborn,  being  quoted  from  a 
report  of  the  Massachusetts  State  Board  of 
Charities,  1866:— 

"The  attempt  to  reduce  to  its  lowest  point 
the  number  of  the  dependent,  vicious  and 
criminal  classes,  and  tenderly  provide  for 
those  who  cannot  be  lifted  out  of  them,  is 
surely  worthy  the  best  effort  of  a  Christian 
n6 


DR.   HOWE 

people.  But  that  the  work  may  be  well 
done,  it  must  be  by  the  people  themselves, 
directly,  and  in  the  spirit  of  Him  who  taught 
that  the  poor  ye  shall  always  have  with  you— 
that  is,nearyou — in  your  heart  and  affections, 
within  your  sight  and  knowledge;  and  not 
thrust  far  away  from  you,  and  always  shut 
up  alone  by  themselves  in  almshouses,  or 
reformatories,  that  they  may  be  kept  at  the 
cheapest  rate  by  such  a  cold  abstraction  as  a 
state  government.  The  people  cannot  be 
absolved  from  these  duties  of  charity  which 
require  knowledge  of  and  sympathy  with 
sufferers;  and  they  should  never  needlessly 
delegate  the  power  of  doing  good.  There  can 
be  no  vicarious  virtue;  and  true  charity  is  not 
done  by  deputy."  .  .  . 

Almost  any  passage  quoted  from  Howe's 
reports  has  the  same  quality.  It  is  written 
by  a  Christian  missionary,  who  is  also,  within 
his  own  field,  a  scientific  man.  He  is  exuber 
ant,  he  is  triumphant,  he  is  inexhaustible. 
No  matter  how  familiar  be  the  theme,  it  is 
always  new  in  his  hands.  Turn  almost  at 
random  to  his  letters  or  papers;  "Do  not 
prevent  your  blind  child  from  developing,  as 
he  grows  up,  courage,  self-reliance,  generosity, 
and  manliness  of  character,  by  excessive 
indulgence,  by  sparing  him  thought  and 
anxiety  and  hard  work,  and  by  giving  him 
undeserved  preference  over  others.  If  he 
117 


DR.   HOWE 

lounges  in  a  rocking-chair  or  on  the  sofa 
cushions,  don't  pat  him  and  say,  'the  poor 
dear  child  is  tired';  but  rout  him  out  and  up 
just  as  you  would  do  with  any  boy  who  was 
contracting  lazy  habits."  .  .  . 

The  following  is  from  a  report  upon  some 
cases  of  arrested  development:  "It  is  true 
that  these  children  and  youth  speak  and  read 
but  little,  and  that  little  very  imperfectly 
compared  with  others  of  their  age;  but  if  one 
brings  the  case  home,  and  supposes  these  to 
be  his  own  children,  it  will  not  seem  a  small 
matter  that  a  daughter,  who,  it  was  thought, 
would  never  know  a  letter,  can  now  read  a 
simple  story,  and  a  son,  who  could  not  say 
'father,'  can  now  distinctly  repeat  a  prayer  to 
his  Father  in  heaven."  ...  Or  take  some 
words  from  a  private  letter: — 

"The  great  lesson — the  hard  lesson — your 
son  has  first  to  learn  is — to  be  blind;  to  live  in 
the  world  without  light;  to  look  upon  what  of 
existence  is  yet  vouchsafed  him  as  a  blessing 
and  a  trust,  and  to  resolve  to  spend  it  grate 
fully,  cheerfully,  and  conscientiously,  in  the 
service  of  his  Maker  and  for  the  happiness  of 
those  about  him." 

It  was  a  matter  of  accident  that  the  blind 
should  have  engrossed  Howe's  attention  earlier 
than  the  feeble-minded,  for  whom  he  began 
his  labors  in  1846,  and  for  whom  a  State 
school  was,  through  his  efforts,  established 
118 


DR.   HOWE 

in  Massachusetts,  in  1852.  This  institution 
was  quite  as  exclusively  Howe's  creation  as 
was  the  School  for  the  Blind,  and  over  it  also  he 
extended  his  domestic  influence.  "He  passed 
like  light  through  the  rooms.  Charley  Smith, 
gentlest  of  fifty-year-old  children,  would  leave 
his  wooden  horse  to  run  to  him.  They  loved 
him,  the  children  whom  he  had  rescued  from 
worse  than  death.  When  he  died  they 
grieved  for  him  after  their  fashion,  and  among 
all  the  tributes  to  his  memory,  none  was  more 
touching  than  theirs:  'He  will  take  care  of 
the  blind  in  heaven.  Won't  he  take  care  of 
us  too?'  " 

It  is  not  because  of  any  one  thing  that  he 
has  done  or  said  that  Howe  is  important. 
It  is  because  he  was  by  nature  endowed  with 
an  unconscious,  spontaneous  vision  of  truth 
in  regard  to  the  defective  classes.  When 
dealing  with  them,  he  sees  society  as  a  whole 
and  these  classes  as  parts  of  it.  He  saw  that 
the  whole  of  society  must  be  used  in  order 
to  work  out  this  problem.  The  state  and  the 
individual,  the  influence  of  Christ  and  the 
value  of  money;  in  fact  all  social  factors  are, 
in  Howe's  mind,  viewed  as  elements  in  that 
solid  mesh  and  transparent  unity  of  suffering 
force — humanity.  When  he  deals  with  an 
institution,  or  a  theory  of  criminal  reform, 
he  deals  with  it  as  an  agent  of  the  invisible. 
It  is  to  him  no  more  than  a  device  or  a  symbol. 
119 


DR.   HOWE 

Now,  when  we  remember  that  he  was,  above 
all  things,  a  practical  man,  a  man  of  means 
to  ends,  a  man  of  experience  and  of  the  count 
ing  house,  we  are  prepared  to  realize  the 
magnitude  of  his  intellect. 

It  was,  however,  only  when  Howe  was 
thinking  and  scheming  over  the  fate  of  the 
dependent  classes  that  his  mind  worked  in  this 
transcendent  way.  In  other  matters  he  was 
an  ordinary  man,  a  man  of  headaches  and 
irritability,  a  man  of  doubts  and  errors. 

I  know  of  nothing  that  so  marks  the  in 
scrutability  of  human  nature  as  does  the 
history  of  Dr.  Howe's  relation  to  the  slavery 
question.  That  question  had  been  in  active 
eruption  ever  since  1830.  Dr.  Howe,  one  of 
the  most  sensitive  philanthropists  known  to 
history,  lived  in  daily  contact  with  the  question 
for  many  years  before  he  became  effectively 
interested.  Here  was  a  dependent  class 
indeed — the  slaves:  here  was  a  question  of 
human  suffering  compared  to  which  the 
sorrows  of  his  deaf-mutes  and  half  idiots  were 
trifling  accidents,  the  inevitable  percentage 
of  pain  that  fringes  all  civilization.  Compared 
to  the  horrors  of  slavery  the  evils  which  excited 
Dr.  Howe's  compassion  were  imperceptible. 
Hardly  ever  have  more  telling  exhibitions 
been  unrolled  before  benevolent  people  than 
those  which  were  within  the  daily  repertory 
of  the  abolitionists,  after  Garrison  had  begun 
120 


DR.   HOWE 

his  work.    Nevertheless,  for  Dr.  Howe  the 
hour  had  not  yet  struck. 

At  last  he  became  drawn  into  the  slavery 
question  and,  in  fact,  almost  killed  himself 
over  it.  There  remains  a  great  difference, 
however,  between  his  slavery  work  and  his 
other  work.  When  it  comes  to  slavery,  Dr. 
Howe's  devotion  is  the  same,  his  labors  are 
the  same;  but  his  genius  is  not  the  same.  It 
was  not  given  to  any  man  to  understand  the 
slavery  question  in  the  way  that  Howe  under 
stood  the  cause  of  the  blind  or  the  idiotic. 
Indeed,  slavery  was  not  a  question,  but  a 
condition,  an  atmosphere,  a  thing  so  close  and 
clinging,  so  inherent  and  ingrown  that,  like 
the  shirt  of  Nessus,  it  brought  the  flesh  with  it 
when  it  was  removed.  Poor  or  great,  sinner 
or  saint,  every  man  stood  on  an  equality  before 
the  moral  problems  of  slavery,  and  underwent 
either  conversion  or  corruption  when  the  wave 
smote  him. 

It  was  not  until  1846  that  Dr.  Howe's 
conversion  took  place.  For  seventeen  years 
the  abolitionists  had  been  dancing  like  der 
vishes  before  him;  and  as  late  as  February 
3,  1846,  he  wrote  a  note  declining  Dr.  H.  I. 
Bowditch's  invitation  to  an  anti-slavery  meet 
ing,  in  such  terms  of  polite  deprecation  as 
might  have  been  employed  by  George  Tick- 
nor: — "My  duties  at  home  will  prevent  my 
joining  you  at  eleven  o'clock.  .  .  . 
121 


DR.   HOWE 

"I  carefully  cultivate  my  few  social  rela 
tions  with  slave-holders,  because  I  find  I  can 
do  so,  and  yet  say  to  them  undisguisedly  that 
slavery  is  the  great  mistake,  as  well  as  the  great 
sin  of  the  age.  Now,  do  what  they  may, 
they  cannot  prevent  such  words  from  a  friend 
making  some  impression  upon  their  hearts, 
which  are  as  hard  as  millstones  to  denuncia 
tions  from  an  enemy.  It  is  not  enmity  and 
force,  but  love  and  reason,  that  are  to  be 
used  in  the  coming  strife."  .  .  . 

Then  comes  a  sudden  illumination,  a  break, 
a  discovery,  a  cry  of  anguish,  and  the  curse  of 
slavery  has  leaped  like  a  wild-cat  upon  the 
conscience  of  Dr.  Howe.  He  runs  up  and 
down  with  pain: — "Indeed,  I  for  one  can  say 
that  I  would  rather  be  in  the  place  of  the 
victim  whom  they  are  at  this  moment  sending 
away  into  bondage — I  would  rather  be  in  his 
place  than  in  theirs !  Ay !  through  the  rest  of 
my  earthly  life  I  would  rather  be  a  driven 
slave  upon  a  Louisiana  plantation  than  roll 
in  their  wealth  and  bear  the  burden  of  their 
guilt."  ...  "I  feel  as  though  I  had  swal 
lowed  a  pepper  corn,  when  I  think  that  no 
one  dares  to  be  made  a  martyr  of  in  the  cause 
of  humanity."  .  .  .  "Government  must  be  re 
garded  as  a  divine  institution!  Ay!  and  so 
must  right  and  justice  be  regarded  as  divine 
institutions;  older,  more  sacred,  more  impera 
tive;  and  when  they  clash,  let  the  first  be  as 

122 


DR.    HOWE 

the  potsherd  against  the  granite."  ...  "O! 
for  a  man  among  our  leaders  who  fears  neither 
God,  man  nor  devil,  but  loves  and  trusts  the 
first  so  much  as  to  fear  nothing  but  what 
casts  a  veil  over  the  face  of  truth.  "We  must 
have  done  with  expediency;  we  must  cease  to 
look  into  history,  into  precedents,  into  books 
for  rules  of  action,  and  look  only  into  the 
honest  and  high  purposes  of  our  own  hearts; 
that  is,  when  we  are  sure  we  have  cast 
out  the  evil  passions  from  them."  .  .  . 
"Would  to  God  I  could  begin  my  life  again 
or  even  begin  a  new  one  from  this  moment, 
and  go  upon  the  ground  that  no  fault  or 
error  or  shortcoming  should  ever  be  covered 
up  from  my  own  eyes  or  those  of  others."  .  .  . 
His  words,  just  quoted,  are  the  words  of  a 
prophet;  and  yet  he  was  destined,  in  practical 
politics,  to  become  an  adherent  of  half-meas 
ures  ,  and  a  make-weight  for  self-seekers.  It  was 
as  the  result  of  one  of  the  fugitive  slave  cases 
and  in  the  year  1846  that  Dr.  Howe  became 
immersed  in  the  anti-slavery  cause.  He 
helped  to  edit  the  "Commonwealth,"  the 
organ  of  the  Conscience  Whigs:  he  ran  for 
office,  and  he  became  the  head  of  a  vigilance 
committee,  whose  activity  continued  down  to 
the  outbreak  of  the  war.  Now,  as  everyone 
knows,  vigilance  committees  are  called  into  be 
ing  in  cases  when  law  has  broken  down.  The 
object  of  such  committees  is  to  do  things  which 
123 


DR.   HOWE 

are  necessary,  but  illegal;  hence  their  doings 
are  secret.  It  was  one  of  the  strange  features 
of  the  life  of  that  period  that  the  most  beautiful 
natures  of  the  age,  the  most  tender,  the  most 
unselfish,  the  most  romantic,  felt  called  upon 
to  do  violent,  lawless  and  bloody  work.  To 
threaten  bad  men  with  condign  punishment, 
to  organize  the  rescue  of  prisoners,  to  condone 
theft,  perjury  and  manslaughter  when  com 
mitted  by  their  own  partisans — such  were  the 
duties  of  a  vigilance  committee. 

The  beginning  of  this  vigilance  work  was 
the  underground  railroad  which  existed  all 
over  the  North,  and  even  to  some  extent  in  the 
border  slave  states.  To  help  fugitive  slaves 
on  their  way  to  freedom  became  a  passionate 
occupation  of  young  and  old,  however,  only 
after  Garrison's  doctrines  had  given  a  reli 
gious  sanction  to  the  practice.  Social  condi 
tions  in  America,  at  this  time,  led  to  a  con 
fusion  of  -moral  ideas  and  sometimes  to  a 
perversion  of  the  moral  sense.  We  are 
familiar  with  the  perplexities  that  distressed 
tender-hearted  people  in  the  border  free 
states.  In  the  border  slave  states  moral 
questions  were  equally  complex.  There  is  a 
page  or  two  in  Huckleberry  Finn  in  which 
Mark  Twain  has  depicted  the  feelings  of  a  boy, 
living  in  the  border  slave  state  Missouri,  as 
to  the  ethics  of  helping  a  runaway  slave  to 
escape.  Surely  the  passage  is  among  the 
124 


DR.   HOWE 

greatest  pages  which  that  great  author  ever 
penned.  .  .  . 

I  says;  "All  right;  but  wait  a  minute. 
There's  one  more  thing — a  thing  that  nobody 
don't  know  but  me.  And  that  is,  there's  a 
nigger  here  that  I'm  trying  to  steal  out  of 
slavery,  and  his  name  is  Jim — old  Miss  Wat 
son's  Jim." 

He  says:  "What!  Why  Jim  is—"  He 
stopped  and  went  to  studying. 

I  says:  "I  know  what  you'll  say.  You'll 
say  its  dirty,  low-down  business;  but  what  if  it 
is  ?  Pm  low  down;  and  I'm  going  to  steal  him 
and  I  want  you  to  keep  mum  and  not  let  on. 
Will  you?" 

His  eye  lit  up,  and  he  says:  "I'll  help  you 
steal  him!" 

Well,  I  let  go  all  holts  then,  like  I  was  shot. 
It  was  the  most  astonishing  speech  I  ever 
heard — and  I'm  bound  to  say  Tom  Sawyer  fell 
considerable  in  my  estimation.  Only  I 
couldn't  believe  it.  Tow  Sawyer  a  nigger 
stealer!  .  .  . 

Well,  one  thing  was  dead  sure,  and  that 
was  that  Tom  Sawyer  was  in  earnest,  and 
was  actually  going  to  help  steal  that  nigger 
out  of  slavery.  That  was  the  thing  that  was 
too  many  for  me.  Here  was  a  boy  that  was 
respectable  and  well  brung  up;  and  had  a 
character  to  lose,  and  folks  at  home  that  had 
characters;  and  he  was  bright  and  not  leather- 


DR.    HOWE 

headed;  and  knowing  and  not  ignorant,  and 
not  mean,  but  kind;  and  yet  here  he  was, 
without  any  more  pride,  or  Tightness,  or  feeling, 
than  to  stoop  to  this  business,  and  make 
himself  a  shame,  and  his  family  a  shame, 
before  everybody.  I  couldn't  understand  it  no 
way  at  all.  It  was  outrageous,  and  I  knowed 
I  ought  to  just  up  and  tell  him  so;  and  so  be 
his  true  friend,  and  let  him  quit  the  thing 
right  where  he  was  and  save  himself.  And  I 
did  start  to  tell  him;  but  he  shut  me  up  and 
says:  "Don't  you  reckon  I  know  what  I'm 
about ?"  "Yes."  "Didn't  I  say  I'd  steal 
him?"  "Yes."  "Well,  then."  That's  all 
he  said  and  that's  all  I  said.  .  .  . 

That  the  angel-minded  Dr.  Howe  should 
have  headed  a  vigilance  committee  was  no 
more  extraordinary  than  many  other  strange 
and  terrible  things  in  that  epoch.  Dr.  Howe 
was  perhaps  by  nature  and  early  experience 
fitted  to  head  such  a  committee;  but  nothing 
could  be  farther  removed  from  such  work  than 
the  twenty  years  of  peaceful  work  in  philan 
thropy  which  had  followed  his  stormy  youth; 
above  all,  he  was  no  longer  young.  At  forty- 
five  a  man  cannot  learn  a  new  trade.  Howe 
could  not  meet  the  world  on  a  political  basis  or 
express  himself  through  political  agencies — 
whether  through  the  constitutional  vehicles 
of  legislature,  party,  and  public  meeting — or 
through  the  improvised  vehicles  of  vigilance 
126 


DR.   HOWE 

committee  and  underground  railroad.  His 
activity  in  both  of  these  fields  was  splendid, 
yet  lame;  it  was  the  work  of  a  man  who  only 
half  understood  his  own  function.  In  his 
own  work,  the  only  realities  for  him  are  meta 
physical  realities.  But  in  politics,  he  has  the 
mind  of  an  ordinary  man;  his  thought  creeps 
from  point  to  point,  treats  human  institutions 
with  respect,  and  subordinates  itself  to  the 
opinions  of  other  people.  It  is  positively 
amazing  to  find  Howe,  the  pioneer,  the  fire 
brand — or  rather  the  torch-bearer — in  one 
department  of  thought,  becoming  a  mere 
linkboy  in  another  and  nearly  allied  depart 
ment. 

Howe's  incapacity  for  leadership  in  politics 
was  first  shown  during  the  Freesoil  movement. 
The  "Coalition"  which  the  Freesoilers  made 
with  the  Democrats  in  Massachusetts,  soon 
after  Webster's  defection  in  1850,  was  one  of 
those  political  unions  which  are  nowadays 
called  "deals."  Persons  of  conflicting  prin 
ciples  join  together  in  order  to  defeat  a 
common  opponent,  and,  of  course,  to  divide 
the  offices.  Some  people  object  to  such  deals 
on  the  ground  that  there  is  always  an  element 
of  betrayal,  a  lie,  a  debauchery  of  conscience 
somewhere  and  somehow  involved  in  them. 

The  coalition  which  Dr.  Howe's  asso 
ciates  entered  into  was  very  famous  at  the 
time  and  thereafter.  I  will  not  attempt  to 
127 


DR.   HOWE 

define  its  immorality;  but  I  will  only  say  that  it 
was,  as  Richard  H.  Dana  Jr.  notes  in  his 
diary,  "an  error  in  moral  science."  Dr. Howe 
did  not,  in  political  matters,  understand  his 
own  nature  sufficiently  to  keep  clear  of  this 
coalition.  He  plunged  into  it.  He  was  never 
happy  thereafter.  It  violated  his  conscience 
and  plagued  him  for  years.  He  could  never 
forgive  the  leaders  of  the  Freesoil  party,  nor 
forget  the  treason.  He  writes  to  Sumner  in 
1852:  "I  have  always  had  an  instinct  in  me 
which  I  have  never  been  able  to  body  forth 
clearly — which  tells  me  that  all  this  manoeu 
vring  and  political  expediency  is  all  wrong, 
and  that  each  man  should  go  for  the  right 
regardless  of  others." 

And  again  in  1853:  "Now  every  element 
in  my  nature  rises  up  indignantly  at  the 
thought  of  our  principles  being  bartered  for 
considerations  of  a  personal  and  selfish  nature; 
and  all  my  feelings  bid  me  do  what  my  reason 
forbids — that  is,  make  open  war,  cause  a 
clean  split,  appeal  to  the  Conscience  Whigs 
who  formed  the  nucleus  of  our  party,  and 
march  out  of  the  ranks  with  a  banner  of  our 
own."  He  makes  moan  throughout  six  years 
over  this  coalition.  As  late  as  1857  he  still 
grinds  his  teeth.  "Not  even  Sumner's  elec 
tion  was  worth  the  price  paid  by  the  coalition." 

This  is  all  admirable;  but  it  is  not  enough. 
Had  Howe  understood  reform  politics  as  he 
128 


DR.   HOWE 

understood  philanthropy,  had  he  had  an 
early  training  in  reform  politics,  he  would 
have  taken  a  sledge-hammer  and  battered 
the  coalition  in  public.  If  the  matter  had 
occurred  in  philanthropy,  Howe  would  have 
cleared  the  air.  If,  for  instance,  Dr.  Howe 
had  returned  from  Europe  and  found  Charles 
Sumner  giving  Laura  Bridgman  dogmatic 
religious  instruction,  he  would  have  stopped 
it;  yes,  even  if  he  had  been  obliged  to  placard 
the  town  against  the  Sumner.  But  in  politics 
he  was  helpless.  As  to  the  Whigs,  he  says: 
"I  have  done  what  I  could,  for  where  else 
can  I  go?  Under  what  organization  can  I 
fight  in  this  terrible  emergency?" 

Alas,  there  is  no  banner  for  a  man  like 
Howe  to  fight  under.  He  must  weave  his  own 
banner.  For  his  own  philanthropic  work, 
Dr.  Howe  had  done  this;  but  he  could  not  do  it 
for  politics;  The  anti-slavery  problems  came 
to  him  on  top  of  his  multitudinous  activities. 
He  was  already  superhumanly  active,  but  he 
was  a  man  incapable  of  refusing  work  which 
was  offered  to  him.  He  took  on  the  abolition 
duties  in  addition  to  his  regular  work.  His 
health  broke  down  almost  immediately;  but 
there  was  no  leisure  for  him  to  attend  to  his 
health.  His  solution  of  all  problems  was  by 
work,  work,  work.  He  was  not,  it  must  be 
remembered,  of  a  thoughtful  nature.  His 
thinking  was  usually  done  for  him  by  the  en- 
9  129 


DR.   HOWE 

ergy  of  his  temperament,  which  handed  him 
a  list  of  agenda  each  morning  and  at  night 
sent  him  to  the  slumbers  of  fatigue.  Thus 
there  was  no  very  distinct  philosophy  under 
lying  his  course  of  action  in  regard  to  slavery — 
no  historic  point  of  view,  or  reasoned  theory, 
no  illumination. 

It  is  very  terrible  to  see  Howe  making 
journeys  to  Kansas  at  a  time  when  he  should 
have  been  in  bed  with  a  sick-nurse  beside  him. 
Pegasus  at  the  plow  is  good;  but  this  was  not 
exactly  the  right  plow  for  Howe.  The  sight 
is  a  sublime  one,  all  the  same.  The  old 
buccaneer  retains  an  instinctive  belief  in  force. 
"Force  is  not  yet  eliminated  from  the  means 
employed  by  God,  bloodshed  is  necessary, 
bloodshed  will  come.  But  when,  but  how  ? — 
Under  what  circumstances  may  we  resort  to  it  ?" 
This  is  the  burden  of  many  letters.  In  the 
meantime  he  and  his  vigilance  committee 
were  getting  into  deeper  water  all  the  time  with 
the  fugitive  slave  law,  and  with  the  still  fiercer 
Kansas-Nebraska  problems,  until  finally 
matters  were  brought  to  a  crisis  by  John 
Brown's  raid,  of  which  I  must  say  a  few 
words  here. 

It  is  wrong  to  compare  John  Brown  with 
Joan  of  Arc,  as  is  so  often  done.  John  Brown's 
name  is  stained  with  massacre.  He  is  a  spirit 
of  a  far  lower  heaven  than  Joan  of  Arc.  And 
yet  he  is  to  be  classified  under  Joan  of  Arc; 
130 


DR.   HOWE 

because  he  is  an  example  of  the  symbolism  in 
herent  in  human  nature  and  in  human  society. 
Everyone  understands  both  Joan  of  Arc  and 
John  Brown,  but  nobody  can  explain  them. 
It  takes  an  epoch,  it  takes  the  whole  of  a  society, 
it  takes  a  national  and  religious  birthpang  to 
produce  either  Joan  of  Arc  or  John  Brown. 
Everyone  living  at  the  time  takes  some  part  in 
the  episode;  and  thereafter,  the  story  remains 
as  a  symbol,  an  epitome  of  the  national  and 
religious  idea,  which  was  born  through  the 
crisis.  John  Brown  and  his  raid  are  an  epit 
ome,  a  popular  summary  of  the  history  of  the 
United  States  between  the  Missouri  Compro 
mise  and  the  Gettysburg  celebration.  Not  a 
child  has  been  born  in  the  country  since  his  death 
to  whom  John  Brown  does  not  symbolize  the 
thing  that  happened  to  the  heart  and  brain  of 
the  American  people  between  1820  and  1865. 
He  is  as  big  as  a  myth,  and  the  story  of  him  is 
an  immortal  legend — perhaps  the  only  one  in 
our  history. 

The  relation  which  the  anti-slavery  people 
bore  to  the  John  Brown  episode  is  that  of  a 
chorus:  they  hailed  the  coming  of  the  Lord. 
It  is  also  that  of  a  client:  they  backed  him  with 
money  and  arms.  They  are  the  link  between 
the  myth  and  the  fact.  They  lived  inside  the 
swirl  of  rhapsody  which  was  bearing  Brown 
across  the  horizon.  The  progress  of  right 
eous-minded  law-breaking,  which  began  as  soon 


DR.   HOWE 

as  Garrison  had  explained  the  iniquity  of  the 
Federal  Constitution,  was  very  rapid  after  the 
passage  of  the  fugitive  slave  law  in  1850.  To 
help  fugitive  slaves  escape  was  a  good  training 
for  those  who  were  to  supply  anti-slavery 
swords  and  guns  to  the  private  war  in  Kansas. 
Criticism  stands  dumb  before  this  situation: 
no  man  can  tell  what  he  himself  would  have 
done  under  the  circumstances.  The  anti- 
slavery  scholars  and  saints  regarded  themselves 
as  the  representatives  of  law  and  order  in 
fomenting  this  carnage;  and  perhaps  they 
were. 

But  the  mind  of  John  Brown  took  one  more 
stride,  and  imagined  a  holy  war  to  be  begun 
through  a  slave  insurrection.  Nobody  could 
have  stopped  Brown:  he  was  wound  up:  he 
was  going  to  do  the  thing.  He  naturally 
came  to  his  Eastern  partisans  for  support,  and 
of  course  obtained  a  different  degree  of  support 
from  each  individual  to  whom  his  horrifying 
scheme  was  disclosed.  The  people  who 
would  listen  sifted  themselves  down  by  natural 
law  to  half  a  dozen,  and  among  this  half- 
dozen  was  Dr.  Howe.  Brown  moved  about 
under  assumed  names,  and  his  accomplices 
corresponded  in  cryptic  language,  raising 
money  and  arms.  The  natural  power  and 
goodness  of  the  man  cast  a  spell  over  many 
who  met  him.  It  was  more  than  a  spell,  it 
was  the  presence  and  shadow  of  martyrdom. 

132 


DR.   HOWE 

And  it  fell  upon  the  imagination  of  enthusiasts 
who  had  spent  years  of  their  lives  in  romantic, 
sacrificial  law-breaking.  More  than  this: 
John  Brown  was  the  living  embodiment  of 
an  idea  with  which  the  anti-slavery  mind  was 
always  darkly  battling — the  idea  of  atone 
ment,  of  vicarious  suffering.  Howe  and  his 
associates  somehow  felt  that  they  would  be 
untrue  to  themselves — false  to  God — if  they 
did  not  help  John  Brown,  even  if  he  were 
going  to  do  something  that  would  not  bear 
the  telling.  John  Brown  thus  fulfilled  the 
dreams  of  the  abolitionists;  he  was  their  man. 
He  portended  bloodshed — salvation  through 
bloodshed.  It  was  to  come.  Brown  himself 
hardly  knew  his  own  significance  or  he  would 
have  demanded  personal  service,  not  money, 
from  his  patrons.  Suppose  John  Brown  had 
said  to  Gerrit  Smith,  and  to  Sanborn  and  Howe 
and  Higginson  and  Stearns:  "I  do  not  want 
your  money,  but  come  with  me.  And  if  you 
will  not  come  now,  yet  next  year  you  will  come 
— and  the  year  after — you,  and  your  sons  by  the 
thousand.  You  will  follow  me  and  you  will 
not  return,  as  I  shall  not  return." 

Brown  did  not  say  this,  but  the  truth  of  it 
was  in  the  sky  already,  and  when  the  raid 
occurred  at  Harper's  Ferry  men  shuddered  not 
only  with  horror,  but  with  awe.  The  raid  took 
place.  It  took  place,  not  in  Kansas,  a  long 
way  off,  but  within  a  few  miles  of  Washington. 

133 


DR.   HOWE 

Innocent  men  were  killed.  No  one  could 
tell  whether  a  slave  insurrection  was  to  follow. 
A  wave  of  panic  swept  across  the  South,  and  of 
something  not  unlike  panic  across  the  North. 
The  keynote  was  struck.  There  was  no 
doubt  about  that,  anywhere.  The  conspir 
ators,  that  is  to  say  Brown's  secret  committee, 
fled  to  Canada,  with  the  exception  of  Gerrit 
Smith  who  went  into  an  asylum — and  of 
Higginson  who  went  about  his  business  as 
usual.  They  burnt  their  papers  and  look  legal 
advice  as  to  the  law  concerning  conspiracy 
and  armed  rebellion.  Dr.  Howe,  under  the 
belief  that  his  doing  so  would  somehow  shield 
Brown,  published  a  card  disclaiming  knowl 
edge  and  complicity  in  the  raid. 

It  is  interesting  to  note  the  various  reasons 
which  moved  the  conspirators  to  flight,  at 
least  to  contrast  the  reasons  which  they  after 
ward  gave  for  their  several  sudden  disap 
pearances.  Sanborn  ran  away  because  he 
feared  that  if  the  conspirators  were  arrested, 
their  personal  insignificance  might  damage 
the  cause.  It  seemed  to  him  "  very  important 
that  the  really  small  extent  of  any  movement 
should  be  concealed  and  its  reach  and  char 
acter  exaggerated."  But  Howe  published 
his  disclaimer  for  the  very  opposite  reason. 
He  wished  that  the  smallness  of  extent  and 
reach  of  the  movement  should  be  thoroughly 
well  exposed  to  the  public.  This,  he  thought, 

134 


DR.   HOWE 

would  "rather  help  Brown  than  otherwise, 
because  if  he  were  shown  to  be  an  isolated 
individual  acting  for  himself  and  not  the 
agent  of  others,  the  affair  would  be  less 
formidable  and  the  desire  for  vengeance  less 
strong."  Perhaps  anyone  implicated  in  a 
terrible  crime  is  apt  to  discover  some  reason 
why  his  own  temporary  disappearance  will 
serve  the  cause  of  righteousness.  At  any 
rate,  it  is  too  much  to  expect  the  humor  of  the 
situation  to  appear  very  strongly  in  the 
correspondence  of  the  secret  committee.  Dr. 
Howe  afterward  went  to  Washington  to 
testify  in  the  investigation  which  followed, 
partly,  no  doubt,  that  he  might  rectify  the  im 
pression  created  by  his  card,  which  had  led 
people  to  believe  that  he  knew  less  of  Brown's 
plans  than  was  the  case. 

This  momentary  concern  for  their  own 
safety  a  little  tarnishes  the  heroic  glamor 
that  hangs  about  the  conspirators,  and  which 
in  another  age  would  have  been  quickly 
restored  by  their  execution.  But  they  were 
really  safe.  All  that  the  South  had  hoped 
for  was  to  implicate  the  leaders  of  the  Repub 
lican  party  in  the  raid,  and  in  this  it  failed. 
The  panic  which  seized  all  the  conspirators 
except  Higginson  was  a  natural  reaction  in 
men  who  were  dominated  by  another  man's 
idea,  sustained  above  themselves  by  another 
man's  will  and  thought.  They  believed  they 


DR.   HOWE 

understood;  but  they  did  not  understand. 
When  the  climax  came — a  climax  proper  to 
that  will  and  thought — they  were  thrown  to 
the  ground.  They  forsook  him  and  fled. 
This  does  not  mean  that  when  their  own 
hour  shall  come  these  same  men  will  not 
die  cheerfully  at  the  stake  or  on  the 
cross. 

One  word  must  be  added  as  to  the  effect  of 
casuistry  upon  the  intellect  of  those  enthusi 
asts  who  backed  Brown  while  begging  him  to 
be  gentle.  Dr.  Howe  writes  to  Theodore 
Parker:  "And  I  sent  him  a  draft  of  fifty 
dollars  as  an  earnest  of  my  confidence  in  him 
and  faith  of  his  adhesion  to  what  he  so  often 
assured  me  was  his  purpose — to  avoid  blood 
shed  and  servile  insurrection. "  Now  Brown's 
previous  history  and  avowed  intentions  made 
bloodshed  an  integral  part  of  his  scheme; 
and  no  one  knew  this  better  than  the  secret 
committee.  But  destiny  endows  each  man 
with  so  much  blindness  as  enables  him  to 
fulfil  his  part  in  the  drama  of  history.  It  was 
necessary  for  Dr.  Howe  to  support  John 
Brown.  His  nature  required  it  of  him.  In 
order  to  do  so,  it  was  necessary  for  Howe  to 
undergo  a  slight  mental  obfuscation;  and  lo, 
how  easily  it  was  accomplished!  He  gives 
Brown  a  pistol  and  begs  him  not  to  use  it; 
he  seriously  remonstrates  with  Brown  as  to 
the  stealing  of  horses,  even  when  done  in 

136 


DR.   HOWE 

aiding  slaves  to  escape.  This  is  not  humbug 
but  hallucination. 

It  should  no  more  be  counted  against  Howe 
that  he  could  not  express  himself  through  the 
medium  of  politics  than  it  is  counted  against 
Goethe  that  he  could  not  paint.  To  have 
mastered  one  vehicle  is  enough  for  one  man 
in  this  world.  To  have  seen  life  from  a  point 
of  view  which  unifies  contradictions,  merges 
thought  with  feeling,  identifies  religion  and 
common  sense,  is  enough  to  give  a  man  a  niche 
in  the  temple  of  humanity — yes,  even  though 
this  power  of  vision  is  accorded  to  him  only  at 
moments,  or  when  he  is  dealing  with  a  partic 
ular  subject,  or  when  he  has  a  violin  or  a 
paint-brush  in  his  hand. 

It  is  the  man  that  makes  this  unity — this 
stained-glass  window  through  which  truth 
shines.  The  artists  have  had  a  monopoly  of 
logic,  and  are  the  only  people  who  get  the  credit 
of  being  expressive.  Yet  now  and  then  a 
philosopher  like  Kant  draws  together  a  lot  of 
old  junk,  and  thinks  over  it,  and  arranges  it  till 
it  becomes — to  anyone  who  can  follow  the 
reasoning — a  sort  of  cathedral  of  logic.  Or 
again,  a  man  who  is  the  very  antipodes  of  Kant 
— a  man  of  action  who  arranges  nothing,  but 
whose  thought  and  conduct  are  arranged  for 
him  by  nature — becomes  so  polarized  and  at 
one  with  himself  that  he  sheds  a  sort  of  glow 
about  him;  but  whether  this  glow  comes  out  of 

137 


DR.    HOWE 

his  words  or  from  his  conduct  and  words  taken 
together  we  hardly  know.  The  vehicle  is 
nothing;  the  man  is  all.  Such  unitary  natures 
are  rare  enough;  and  Howe,  within  his  own 
limitations,  and  while  standing  over  his  own 
tripod  with  his  own  peculiar  lyre  in  his  hand, 
is  one  of  them. 

The  outbreak  of  the  war  put  an  end  to  all 
those  conditions  which  had  been  turning 
human  nature  inside  out  during  the  fifties. 
It  was  no  longer  necessary  for  idealism  to  seek 
its  outlet  in  crime,  nor  for  half-good  men  to  be 
turned  into  devils  because  they  had  not  in  them 
the  stuff  that  makes  martyrs.  When  the  war 
came,  the  average  man  found  the  sacrifice  pre 
pared  for  him  in  a  form  which  he  could  under 
stand.  He  gave  himself  freely.  He  gave  all  he 
had.  There  followed  such  an  outpouring  of 
virtue  and  heroism  that  the  crimes  of  all 
humanity  might  seem  to  have  been  wiped  out 
by  it;  and  at  the  end  of  the  war  the  United 
States  resumed  her  place  among  modern  na 
tions,  and  took  up  the  conventional  problems 
of  modern  life. 

During  the  war  Dr.  Howe  was  a  member 
of  the  Sanitary  Commission;  and  during  the 
remainder  of  his  life  he  continued  to  be  the 
greatest  authority  on  everything  that  con 
cerned  organized  charity,  and  probably  the 
most  active  individual  who  had  ever  taken 
part  in  such  things  in  the  United  States. 

138 


DR.   HOWE 

In  this  sketch  there  has  not  been  time  to 
touch  upon  the  international  side  of  Howe's 
life;  his  relation  to  the  liberals  and  philan 
thropists  of  Europe,  from  Lafayette  to  Kossuth. 
I  omit  the  picturesque  episodes  which  that 
relation  gave  rise  to,  as,  for  instance,  Howe's 
imprisonment  in  Prussia  in  1832,  and  his 
being  chosen,  at  a  later  date,  as  the  deposi 
tory  for  the  stolen  crown  jewels  of  Hungary. 
"When  the  jewels  were  recovered,"  writes 
Mr.  W.  J.  Stillman  in  his  autobiography, 
"they  were  to  be  hidden  in  a  box  of  a  conserve 
for  which  that  vicinity  was  noted,  and  then 
carried  to  Constantinople,  from  which  point 
I  was  to  take  charge  of  them  and  deliver 
them  in  Boston  to  Dr.  S.  G.  Howe,  the  well- 
known  Philhellene."  The  jewels  were  re 
covered  by  the  Austrian  Government  before 
they  could  be  transferred  to  America,  and  this 
was,  no  doubt,  a  fortunate  outcome  for  all  con 
cerned.  Dr.  Howe's  liberalism  remained  at 
the  same  temperature  throughout  his  life.  It 
led  him  in  1867  to  revisit  Greece  for  the  last 
time,  as  a  distributor  of  supplies  to  the  insur 
gent  Cretans.  It  led  him  in  1871  to  favor 
the  Annexation  of  Santo  Domingo  to  the 
United  States. 

Howe  died  in  1876.  The  rapid  cycle  of 
social  revolutions  in  the  United  States  which 
followed  the  Civil  War,  heightened  the  con 
trast  between  the  veteran  and  the  new  age, 

139 


DR.   HOWE 

and  strengthened  the  romance  that  had 
always  hung  about  him.  To  have  taken 
part  in  the  Greek  Revolution  seemed,  in  1870, 
almost  the  same  thing  as  to  have  been 
present  at  the  siege  of  Troy.  The  mantle  of 
Byron  and  the  Isles  of  Greece  never  quite  fell 
from  his  shoulders. 

Dr.  Howe  seems  to  have  been  one  of  those 
nimble,  playful,  light-footed  natures  who  are 
as  strong  as  steel  and  can  be  as  stern  as  steel 
upon  occasion.  His  physical  endurance  was  so 
great  that  it  led  to  his  habitually  overtaxing 
himself.  His  excitability  made  him  a  hard 
man  to  live  with;  and  he  was  occasionally 
hasty,  harsh,  and  exacting.  This  irritability 
of  Dr.  Howe's  is  deeply  related  to  his  whole 
mind  and  being.  He  was  constitutionally 
deficient  in  the  power  to  rest.  The  blind 
headaches  which  clouded  the  last  third  of  his 
life  were  probably  the  convulsions  through 
which  outraged  nature  resumed  her  functions. 
He  supposed  them  to  be  the  residuum  of 
Grecian  malaria;  but  anyone  reading  of 
Howe's  daily  life  would  look  for  breakdown 
somewhere.  There  is  a  gleaming  elfin  pre 
cocity  about  him  which  the  human  machine 
cannot  support  forever.  He  was  ever  in 
action:  as  he  so  wonderfully  says  of  himself, 
"he  prayed  with  his  hands  and  feet." 

Dr.  Howe  had  that  kind  of  modesty  which 
seems  to  be  confined  to  the  heroes  of  romantic 
140 


DR.    HOWE 

adventure:  rough  soldiers  have  it,  and  people 
whose  courage  has  been  put  to  the  proof  a 
thousand  times. 

"I  do  assure  you,  my  dear  Sumner,"  he 
writes  in  1846,  "the  sort  of  vulgar  notoriety 
which  follows  any  movement  of  this  kind 
is  a  very  great  drawback  to  the  pleasure  of 
making  it.  To  the  voice  of  praise  I  am 
sensible,  too  sensible  I  know;  but  I  do  detest 
this  newspaper  puffing,  and  I  have  been  put 
to  the  blush  very  often  by  it." 

The  following  is  his  account  of  his  reception 
by  the  peasants  on  the  Isthmus  of  Corinth 
when  he  was  recognized  in  1844. 

"The  whole  village  gathered  about  the 
house,  and  to  make  a  long  story  short,  I  went 
away  amid  demonstrations  of  affectionate 
remembrance  and  continued  attachment,  so 
earnest  and  so  obvious  that  they  made  one  of 
my  companions  shed  tears,  though  he  under 
stood  not  a  word  of  the  spoken  language. 
But  I  must  not  enlarge  on  this  now,  for  I 
have  no  time;  perhaps  I  ought  not  to  do  so 
even  had  I  ever  so  much  time;  but  you  will  not, 
I  know,  suspect  me  of  vanity  in  making  any 
communications  to  you." 

Charles  Sumner  is  almost  the  only  man 
to  whom  he  unbosoms  himself  on  such  sub 
jects:  "It  is  quite  too  bad  to  keep  people 
under  such  a  delusion  about  me.  One  gentle 
man,  an  F.  R.  S.,  writes  that  he  wants  to  see 
141 


DR.   HOWE 

me  more  than  any  other  man  in  Europe. 
He  has  published  a  little  book,  with  physio 
logical  reflections  on  privation  of  senses, 
which  he  dedicates  "To  Dr.  Howe,  the 
ingenious  and  successful  teacher  of  Laura 
Bridgman."  The  man  looks  up  to  me;  yet 
it  is  evident,  from  reading  his  books,  that 
he  has  himself  tenfold  more  talent,  acquire 
ment,  and  merit  than  I  have  or  ever  shall 
have."  ...  To  Horace  Mann  he  writes  in 
1848,  "It  is  absurd  for  me  to  reach  up  from 
my  littleness  to  tender  counsel  to  one  so  high 
as  you;  but  my  love  for  you  is  as  great  as 
though  we  stood  face  to  face." 

He  thus  questions  Sumner  as  to  whether 
he  himself  can  learn  to  be  an  editor:  "Tell 
me  my  best,  my  almost  only  friend,  is  there 
any  reason  to  suppose  that  by  any  apprentice 
ship  I  could,  without  rashness,  enter  the  edi 
torial  field."  This  from  a  man  who  had  only 
to  touch  any  cause  to  make  the  world  ring  with 
it,  is  incredible.  One  cannot  hope  really  to 
understand  such  a  character:  it  reminds  one 
of  the  meekness  of  Moses.  There  is  a  rose- 
leaf  girlish  quality  about  this  modesty  which 
makes  it  one  of  the  most  wonderful  things  in 
nature.  Few  of  us  have  ever  seen  it;  we  have 
only  read  about  it;  for  people  are  always 
writing  about  it,  and  it  evokes  literature.  No 
sooner  does  one  of  these  modest  people  appear 
than  everyone  praises  him.  I  suppose  people 
142 


DR.   HOWE 

feel  that  praise  cannot  injure  such  a  nature: 
there  is  nothing  for  praise  to  stick  to.  The 
bitter  lips  of  malice  break  into  eulogy  before 
this  quality,  which  shrinks  from  commenda 
tion  as  most  people  shrink  from  censure. 
In  Dr.  Howe's  case  this  modesty  set  off  not 
only  deeds  of  physical  prowness,  but  intel 
lectual  accomplishments  of  a  most  dazzling 
kind.  Hence  the  enormous  number  of  some 
what  tedious  eulogies  upon  him.  One  is 
obliged  to  approach  him  through  a  stack  of 
funeral  wreaths. 

He  was  totally  without  personal  thought, 
personal  self-consciousness,  and  more  like  a 
disembodied  spirit  than  a  man.  This  im 
personal  quality  gave  him  the  power  of  telling 
home  truths  to  people  without  offending 
them.  To  strangers,  to  acquaintances,  to 
intimate  friends,  to  proud  spoiled  egotists, 
to  bad  men  with  whom  he  is  at  odds — he 
can  always  tell  the  exact  truth  without  con 
veying  any  personal  ill-feeling.  He  flashes 
in  through  the  walls  and  turrets  of  Charles 
Sumner,  or  of  Theodore  Parker,  and  puts 
the  house  in  order  with  lightning  strokes  of 
wit,  and  with  bold  home-thrusts  of  spontane 
ous  ridicule.  He  touches  his  friend's  soul 
with  celestial  surgery,  then  quickly  rubs 
salve  upon  the  wounds,  and  is  back  again 
at  his  desk  before  the  patient  has  discovered 
his  visitation.  To  say  that  he  is  the  warmest 

143 


DR.   HOWE 

nature  that  ever  came  out  of  New  England 
would  not  be  expressive.  He  is  the  warmest 
Anglo  Saxon  of  whom  I  have  ever  read  or 
heard  tell.  Constant  expressions  of  love  and 
affection  flow  from  him,  effusive,  demon 
strative,  emotional.  It  is  not  necessary  to 
cite  them.  Open  the  book.  The  German 
romanticists  of  whom  Jean  Paul  Richter  is  a 
type  come  into  one's  mind;  but  there  was  a 
literary  tang  to  their  sentiment.  I  must, 
however,  quote  two  passages  illustrative  of 
Howe's  ordinary  state  of  mind:—- 
"My  Well-beloved  Friend :- 

"Your  note  from  New  York  found  me  last 
evening,  and  gave  me  a  feeling  as  near  akin 
to  pure  joy  as  I  ever  expect  to  feel  on  earth. 
Why  is  it  that  we  men  are  so  shy  about  mani 
festing  a  natural  feeling  in  a  natural  way,  and 
letting  down  the  flood-gates  of  the  eye  to  the 
flow  of  tears?  I  feared  to  go  and  bid  you 
adieu  on  Wednesday,  lest  I  should  not  be 
able  to  conceal  my  emotion,  hide  my  tears. 
I  succeeded,  however;  I  wept  not  until  I  was 
alone!" 

Dr.  Howe's  aged  friend,  Mr.  F.  W.  Bird,  has 
left  an  anecdote  of  their  last  meeting  which 
would  add  a  beauty  to  Homer: 

"As  I  rose  to  leave,  he  followed  me  into  the 

hall,  threw  his  arms  around  my  neck  and 

with  a  beautiful  smile  said:  'My  dear  old 

fellow,  let  me  kiss  you,'  and  gave  me  a  warm 

144 


DR.   HOWE 

kiss.  Within  two  days  the  thick  curtain 
fell."  At  the  time  of  this  parting  Bird  was 
sixty-six,  and  Howe  seventy -five. 

Is  it  not  evident  from  all  that  has  gone 
before  that  Dr.  Howe  was  a  saint?  He  con 
stantly  suggests  one  or  other  of  the  great  saints 
in  the  Roman  Calendar.  And  I  will  predict 
that  the  world  has  rather  begun  than  finished 
with  its  interest  in  him.  His  work  in  charity 
will  never  be  superseded.  Succeeding  penolo- 
gists  will  recur  to  it  to  save  them  from  the 
science  of  their  times. 


10  145 


JESTERS 


JESTERS. 

IT  is  right  to  break  up  old  china  because  it  is 
ugly;  but  to  destroy  the  china  because  you 
enjoy  the  sound  of  the  crash  is  a  little  depraved. 
Bernard  Shaw  and  G.  K.  Chesterton,  et  id 
omne  genus — the  race  of  joyous  tomboys  who 
dash  things  about — have  a  great  charm  always. 
The  bored,  cultivated,  sedentary  people  in 
any  old  civilization  wake  up  more  cheerfully 
in  the  morning  when  there  is  one  of  these 
fellows  at  work.  A  new  thrill  comes  into  the 
journals  which  the  literati  had  grown  to  hate 
so  heartily.  "Ah,"  cry  the  leisure  classes, 
"  what  has  Tommy  got  to  say  this  morning,  I 
wonder." 

These  two  gentlemen,  Shaw  and  Chesterton, 
are  the  Max  and  Moritz  of  the  present  epoch. 
For  this  reason  I  have  tried  to  like  them.  I 
have  tried  to  tolerate  them.  I  have  tried  to 
believe  that  they  are  serviceable  to  mankind 
from  some  point  of  view  which  is  not  yet  re 
vealed  to  me.  I  do  believe  this;  but  I  believe 
it  with  the  head  and  not  with  the  heart.  The 
following  reflections  are,  after  all,  a  mere 
groping  toward  the  light,  and  the  tapping  of 
the  staff  of  a  blind  man. 
149 


JESTERS 

Any  one  who  has  ever  passed  through 
London  must  have  been  struck  with  the  com 
petition  for  notice  among  all  classes  of  people 
whose  conspicuousness  depends  upon  their 
personal  activity.  In  England  there  are  such 
masses  of  any  one  kind  of  man  or  woman  that 
the  desire  for  identification — in  itself  a  noble 
desire — leads  people  to  resort  to  every  expedi 
ent  for  attracting  notice  to  themselves.  This 
is  the  explanation  of  the  hyphen  in  names. 
Edward  B.  Jones  is  a  name  that  no  one  can 
remember;  but  Edward  Burne- Jones  is  easy. 
In  like  manner  ladies  turn  to  lion-hunting,  not 
because  they  love  lions  but  because  it  gives 
them  a  status.  Indeed,  England  has  always 
been  full  of  sham  lions,  who  spring  into  exist 
ence  to  supply  the  demand  created  by  these 
ladies.  So  of  charity;  so  of  culture;  so  of 
politics. 

Now  there  are  often  intellectual  men — 
like  Beaconsfield,  and  Oscar  Wilde,  and 
Whistler — who  are  unwilling  to  wait  for  their 
talents  to  lift  them  into  notice,  but  who  resort 
to  artificial  notoriety  in  order  to  expedite 
matters.  They  stick  a  feather  in  their  cap 
and  call  it  'maccaroni'.  Their  times  suggest 
this  course  to  them,  and  their  times  claim 
them  instantly  when  they  have  complied  with 
the  suggestion.  In  literary  England  there 
is  such  an  enormous  and  immediate  acclaim 
for  any  new  cleverness,  that  a  poor  and  talented 

150 


JESTERS 

young  man  is  under  strong  temptation  to 
become  surprising  and  brilliant  in  his  writing. 
If  he  will  only  do  this  he  will  find  himself 
petted,  fed,  and  proclaimed  almost  at  once. 

This  particular  entry  into  the  Temple  of 
Fame,  however,  exacts  a  heavy  toll;  for  a  man 
who  has  written  in  order  to  break  the  crust 
of  the  public  with  his  pungency,  is  not  allowed 
ever  thereafter  to  write  without  pungency. 
I  believe  that  the  talent  of  all  the  men  I  have 
named  would  have  developed  more  seriously 
if  they  had  not  in  early  life  given  way  to  the 
taste  of  the  public  for  sensation.  But  they 
would  not  wait:  they  must  sting  themselves 
into  notice. 

As  for  Shaw  and  Chesterton,  they  seem  to 
have  become  partners  in  a  sort  of  game  of 
buffoonery — for  the  world  will  have  its  jesters. 
They  are  tumblers  on  a  raft,  floating  down 
stream,  surrounded  by  a  whole  Henley  regatta, 
an  armada  of  applauding  multitudes,  on 
barges,  wherries,  tugs,  and  ferry-boats  and 
river-craft  innumerable,  whose  holiday  pas 
sengers  shout  their  admiration  to  the  perform 
ers  on  the  raft,  and  egg  on  the  favorites  to 
superhuman  effort.  Shaw  shows  how  far 
he  can  stick  out  his  tongue  while  continuing 
to  stand  on  one  leg.  "Bravo!  Huzzah!" 
roars  the  audience.  "Did  you  ever  see  the 
like?  O  Jesu,  this  is  excellent  sport!  Faith! 
How  he  holds  his  countenance!  He  doth 


JESTERS 

it  as  like  one  of  these  harlotry  players  as  ever 
I  see." 

Chesterton  thereupon  puts  his  wrists  on 
the  carpet  and  lifts  his  back  like  a  cat.  "  Lord 
save  us!  This  was  Ercles'  vein!  He  hath 
simply  the  best  wit  of  any  handy-craftsman 
in  Athens.  You  have  not  a  man  in  all  Athens 
able  to  discharge  Pyramus  but  he!" 

There  is  some  exaggeration  in  this  picture; 
but,  I  think,  some  truth  also.  The  loss  which 
Shaw  and  Chesterton  share  in  common  is  a 
loss  of  delicacy.  They  are  crude:  they  are 
all  edge.  They  are,  indeed,  a  little  vulgar. 
But  this  is  not  the  serious  objection  to  them. 
The  serious  objection  to  Shaw  and  Chesterton 
is  that  they  have  no  intellectual  independence. 
They  are  moving  with  the  show.  It  will 
pass,  and  they  with  it. 


152 


THE   COMIC 


THE  COMIC. 
I. 

In  the  caverns  of  our  nature  lie  hid  various 
emotions,  like  beasts  in  a  lair.  They  are  shy 
to  the  voice  of  question  or  of  curiosity,  and 
they  slink  and  crouch  all  the  more,  if  we  try 
to  lure  them  out  for  inspection.  But  they 
come  gambolling  and  roaring  forth  at  the  call 
of  ingenuous  human  utterance.  Any  utter 
ance  that  has  in  it  no  afterthought,  but  is 
mere  speech  that  has  grown  out  of  a  need  to 
speak,  lays  a  spell  upon  the  wild  things  within 
us.  Before  the  echo  of  it  has  died  away  they 
are  rampant  in  the  open,  ignorant  of  how  they 
came  forth.  Let  no  one  then  wonder  at  the 
difficulties  that  surround  all  study  of  the 
human  emotions, — blushing  giants,  vanishing 
Genii  that  they  are. 

It  is  easy  for  us  to-day  to  see  that  comedy 
is  in  its  nature  the  same  sort  of  thing  as 
tragedy.  They  arise  out  of  the  same  need, 
convey  the  same  truth,  depend  upon  the  same 
talent.  The  English  drama  interwove  comedy 
and  tragedy  in  the  same  play,  and  Shake 
speare's  greatness  in  one  is  of  a  piece  with 

155 


THE    COMIC 

his  greatness  in  the  other.  Indeed  there 
are  scenes  in  Lear,  Shylock,  and  Henry  IV 
where  tragedy  and  comedy  are  overlaid — 
where  the  same  scene  is  both  tragic  and 
comic  and  we  laugh  and  cry  at  the  same  time. 
But  for  a  Greek  to  have  seen  this  identity 
is  very  remarkable;  because  Greek  tragedy 
and  Greek  comedy  represented  distinct  pro 
fessions  and  were  totally  different  in  their 
methods  of  appeal.  A  Greek  tragedy  was  a 
drama  of  fate,  based  on  a  familiar  bit  of 
religious  folk-lore.  The  plot  was  known, 
the  interest  lay  in  the  treatment.  A  Greek 
comedy,  however,  was  a  farrago  of  licentious 
nonsense,  developed  in  the  course  of  a  fantas 
tic  narrative- play:  it  was  what  we  should  call 
a  musical  extravaganza.  Greek  comedy  is 
gigantesque  buffoonery,  interspersed  with 
lyric  and  choral  passages  of  divine  beauty — 
the  whole,  following  a  traditional  model  as 
to  its  arrangement. 

With  this  machinery  Aristophanes  proceeds 
to  shake  the  stones  of  the  Greek  theatre  with 
inextinguishable  laughter.  He  will  do  any 
thing  to  raise  a  laugh.  He  introduces  Socrates 
hung  up  in  a  basket  and  declaring  that  he  is 
flying  in  the  air  and  speculating  about  the  sun. 
He  makes  the  god  Dionysus— the  very  god  in 
whose  honor  the  theatre  and  festival  exist — to 
leap  from  the  stage  in  a  moment  of  comic 
terror,  and  hide  himself  under  the  long  cloak 
156 


THE    COMIC 

of  his  own  high-priest,  whose  chair  of  state  was 
in  the  front  row  of  the  pit.  Is  it  possible  to 
imagine  what  sort  of  a  scene  in  the  theatre  this 
climax  must  have  aroused?  There  has  been 
no  laughter  since  Aristophanes.  There  is 
something  of  the  same  humor  in  Rabelais;  but 
Rabelais  is  a  book,  and  there  each  man  laughs 
alone  over  his  book,  not  in  company  with  his 
whole  city  or  tribe,  as  in  the  Greek  theatre. 

Now  what  is  it  they  are  laughing  at  ?  It  is 
sallies  of  wit,  personal  hits,  local  allusions, 
indecencies,  philosophical  cracks,  everything 
from  refined  satire  to  the  bludgeons  of  abuse — 
and  the  whole  thing  is  proceeding  in  an  atmos 
phere  of  fun,  of  wild  spirits,  of  irrepressible 
devilry.  Compared  to  Aristophanes,  Shake 
speare  is  not  funny;  he  lacks  size.  He  is  a 
great  and  thoughtful  person,  of  superabundant 
genius  and  charm,  who  makes  Dutch  interiors, 
drenched  in  light.  But  Aristophanes  splits 
the  heavens  with  a  jest,  and  the  rays  of  truth 
stream  down  from  inaccessible  solitudes  of 
speculation.  He  has  no  epigram,  no  clever 
ness,  no  derivative  humor.  He  is  bald  foolery. 
And  yet  he  conveys  mysticism:  he  conveys 
divinity.  He  alone  stands  still  while  the 
whole  empyrean  of  Greek  life  circles  about 
him. 

From  what  height  of  suddenly  assumed 
superiority  does  the  race  of  birds  commiserate 
mankind: 

157 


THE   COMIC 

*"Come  now,  ye  men,  in  nature  darkling,  like  to 
the  race  of  leaves,  of  little  might,  figures  of  clay, 
shadowy  feeble  tribes,  wingless  creatures  of  a  day, 
miserable  mortals,  dream-like  men,  give  your  atten 
tion  to  us  the  immortals,  the  ever-existing,  the  ethereal, 
the  ageless,  who  meditate  eternal  counsels,  in  order 
that  when  you  have  heard  everything  from  us  accu 
rately  about  sublime  things,  the  nature  of  birds, 
and  the  origin  of  gods  and  rivers,  of  Erebus  and 
Chaos,  you  may  henceforth  bid  Prodicus  from  me 
go  weep,  when  you  know  them  accurately." 

Into  what  depth  of  independent  thought  did 
the  man  dream  himself,  that  such  fancies 
could  take  hold  of  him  ?  When  Aristophanes 
has  had  his  say,  there  is  nothing  left  over: 
there  is  no  frame  nor  shell:  there  is  no  theatre 
nor  world.  Everything  is  exploded  and 
scattered  into  sifting,  oscillating,  shimmering, 
slowly-sinking  fragments  of  meaning  and  allu 
sion.  If  anyone  should  think  that  I  am  going 
to  analyze  the  intellect  of  Aristophanes,  he  is 
in  error.  I  wish  only  to  make  a  remark  about 
it;  namely,  that  his  power  is  somehow  rooted 
in  personal  detachment,  in  philosophical 
independence. 

It  was  the  genius  of  Aristophanes  which  must 
have  suggested  to  Plato  the  idea  which  he 
throws  out  in  the  last  paragraph  of  the  Sympo 
sium.  That  great  artist,  Plato,  has  left  many 
luminous  half-thoughts  behind  him.  He  sets 
each  one  in  a  limbo — in  a  cocoon  of  its  own 

*Hickie's  translation. 

158 


THE   COMIC 

light — and  leaves  it  in  careless-careful  fashion, 
as  if  it  were  hardly  worth  investigation.  The 
rascal!  The  setting  has  cost  him  sleepless 
nights  and  much  parchment.  He  has  redrawn 
and  arranged  it  a  hundred  times.  He  is 
unable  to  fathom  the  idea,  and  yet  it  fascinates 
him.  The  setting  in  which  Plato  has  placed 
his  suggestion  about  the  genius  of  tragedy  and 
comedy  is  so  very  wonderful — both  as  a  pic 
ture  and  as  his  apology  for  not  carrying  the 
idea  further — that  I  must  quote  it,  if  only  as 
an  act  of  piety,  and  for  my  own  pleasure. 

*"Agathon  arose  in  order  that  he  might  take  his 
place  on  the  couch  by  Socrates,  when  suddenly  a 
band  of  revellers  entered,  and  spoiled  the  order  of 
the  banquet.  Someone  who  was  going  out  having 
left  the  door  open,  they  had  found  their  way  in,  and 
made  themselves  at  home;  great  confusion  ensued, 
and  everyone  was  compelled  to  drink  large  quan 
tities  of  wine.  Aristodemus  said  that  Eryximachus, 
Phaedrus  and  others  went  away — he  himself  fell  asleep, 
and  as  the  nights  were  long,  took  a  good  rest:  he  was 
awakened  toward  daybreak  by  a  crowing  of  cocks, 
and  when  he  awoke,  the  others  were  either  asleep 
or  had  gone  away;  there  remained  only  Socrates, 
Aristophanes,  and  Agathon,  who  were  drinking  out 
of  a  large  goblet  which  they  passed  round,  and 
Socrates  was  discoursing  to  them.  Aristodemus 
was  only  half  awake,  and  he  did  not  hear  the  begin 
ning  of  the  discourse;  the  chief  thing  which  he  remem 
bered  was  Socrates  compelling  the  other  two  to 
acknowledge  that  the  genius  of  comedy  was  the  same 
with  that  of  tragedy,  and  that  the  true  artist  in  tragedy 

*  Jowett's  translation. 

159 


THE   COMIC 

was  an  artist  in  comedy  also.  To  this  they  were 
constrained  to  assent,  being  drowsy  and  not  quite 
following  the  argument.  And  first  of  all  Aristophanes 
dropped  off;  then,  when  the  day  was  already  dawning, 
Agathon.  Socrates,  having  laid  them  to  sleep,  rose 
to  depart,  Aristodemus,  as  his  manner  was,  following 
him.  At  the  Lyceum  he  took  a  bath,  and  passed  the 
day  as  usual.  In  the  evening  he  retired  to  rest  at 
his  own  home." 

What  can  Plato  have  had  in  mind,  that 
glimmers  to  us  in  the  dawn  as  a  sort  of  dim, 
divine  intimation,  and  is  almost  immediately 
drowned  by  daylight  and  the  market  place? 
I  suppose  that  Plato  may  have  had  in  mind 
certain  moments  in  comedy  where  the  self- 
deluded  isolation  of  some  character  is  so 
perfectly  given  as  to  be  almost  sublime,  and 
thus  to  suggest  tragedy;  or  Plato  may  have 
had  the  opposite  experience,  and  may  have 
found  himself  almost  ready  to  laugh  at  the 
fate  of  Ajax,  whose  weaknesses  of  character 
work  out  so  inevitably,  so  logically,  so  beauti 
fully  in  the  tragedy  of  Sophocles.  Perhaps 
the  thought  passed  through  Plato's  mind: 
"If  this  were  not  tragedy,  what  wonderful 
comedy  it  would  be!  If  only  the  climax  were 
less  painful,  if  the  mad  Ajax,  instead  of  killing 
himself  should  merely  be  driven  to  eat  grass 
like  an  ox  for  a  season,  or  put  on  his  clothes 
hind-side-before — in  fact,  if  Ajax's  faults 
could  only  be  punished  quite  mildly  in  the 
outcome,  here  would  be  a  comedy  indeed!" 
160 


THE    COMIC 

The  stuff  of  which  tragedy  and  comedy  are 
made  is  the  same  stuff.  The  foibles  of  man 
kind  work  up  more  easily  into  comedy  than 
into  tragedy;  and  this  is  the  chief  difference 
between  the  two.  We  readily  understand 
the  Nemesis  of  temperament,  the  fatality 
of  character,  when  it  is  exposed  upon  a  small 
scale.  This  is  the  business  of  comedy;  and 
we  do  not  here  require  the  labored  artifice 
of  gods,  mechanical  plot,  and  pointed  allegory 
to  make  us  realize  the  moral. 

But  in  tragedy  we  have  the  large  scale  to 
deal  with.  A  tragedy  is  always  the  same 
thing.  It  is  a  world  of  complicated  and 
traditional  stage  devices  for  making  us  realize 
the  helplessness  of  mankind  before  destiny. 
We  are  told  from  the  start  to  expect  the  worst: 
there  is  going  to  be  suffering,  and  the  suffering 
is  going  to  be  logical,  inevitable,  necessary. 
There  is  also  an  implication  to  be  conveyed 
that  this  suffering  is  somehow  in  accord  with 
the  moral  constitution  of  the  universe.  The 
aim  of  the  whole  thing  is  to  teach  us  to  submit 
— to  fit  us  for  life. 

There  is  profound  truth  at  the  bottom  of 
these  ideas;  for  whether  you  accept  this 
truth  in  the  form  of  the  Christian  doctrine  of 
humility,  or  in  the  form  of  the  Pagan  doctrine 
of  reverence  for  the  gods,  there  is  no  question 
that  a  human  being  who  is  in  the  state  of 
mind  of  Lear  or  of  Ajax  is  in  a  dangerous 
ii  161 


THE  COMIC 

state.  He  is  going  to  be  punished:  he  is 
going  to  punish  himself.  The  complexities 
of  human  life,  however,  make  this  truth  very 
difficult  to  convey  upon  the  grand  scale.  It 
is,  in  daily  existence,  obscured  by  other  and 
more  obvious  truths.  In  order  to  dig  it  out 
and  present  it  and  make  it  seem  at  all  prob 
able,  every  historical  device  and  trapping 
and  sign-post  of  suggestion — every  stage 
tradition  must  be  used.  The  aim  is  so  exalted 
and  sombre,  and  the  machinery  is  so  ponder 
ous  that  laughter  is  out  of  the  question: 
it  is  forbidden.  The  magnitude  of  the  issues 
oppress  us;  and  we  are  told  that  it  would  be 
cruel  to  the  hero  and  to  the  actor  and  to  the 
author  for  us  to  laugh.  And  yet  we  are 
always  on  the  verge  of  laughter,  and  any 
inattention  to  the  rubric  may  bring  on  a  fit 
of  it.  If  a  windlass  breaks  we  really  laugh 
harder  than  the  occasion  warrants. 

In  reading  the  Book  of  Job,  where  the 
remoteness  of  the  scene  and  certain  absurd 
ities  in  the  plot  relieve  the  strain  of  tragedy, 
we  laugh  inevitably;  and  the  thing  that 
makes  us  laugh  is  the  very  thing  that  ought 
to  fill  us  with  awe — the  rigor  of  the  logic. 

Thus  much  for  the  sunny  side  of  tragedy. 
But  let  us  recur  to  the  night  side  of  comedy. 
Falstaff  is  a  comic  figure,  is  he  not?  And 
yet  what  thoughtful  man  is  there  who  has 
not  enough  of  the  Puritan  in  him  to  see  the 
162 


THE   COMIC 

tragedy  of  such  a  character  as  Falstaff? 
How  must  Falstaff  have  appeared  to  Bunyan! 
— every  stroke  of  genius  which  to  us  makes  for 
the  comic,  adding  a  phosphor-gleam  of  hell- 
fire.  And  Bunyan  is  right:  Falstaff  is  an 
awful  picture;  and  had  Shakespeare  punished 
him  adequately  he  would  appear  awful. 
Let  us  imagine  that  Shakespeare  had  written 
a  play  about  the  old  age  of  Falstaff,  picturing 
his  decay  of  intellect,  his  destitution,  his 
flickering  return  to  humor  which  is  no  longer 
funny — what  could  have  been  more  tragic  ? 

Was  it  with  such  arguments  as  these  that 
Socrates  put  Aristophanes  and  Agathon  to 
sleep  on  the  famous  morning  which  Plato 
chronicles?  We  cannot  tell.  Plato  has  cast 
the  magic  of  a  falling  star  over  the  matter  and 
thus  leaves  it:  his  humor,  his  knack,  his  des 
tiny  compelled  him  to  treat  subjects  in  this 
way.  Something  passes,  and  after  a  light 
has  fallen  far  off  into  the  sea,  we  ask  "What 
was  it?"  Enough  for  Plato's  purpose  that  he 
has  placed  Comedy  where,  perhaps,  no  phil 
osopher  before  or  after  him  ever  had  the  vision 
to  place  it — in  the  heaven  of  man's  highest 
endeavor. 

II. 

The  divine  affinities  of  comedy  have  thus 
been  established,  and  we  may  make  some 
163 


THE   COMIC 

few  stray  observations  on  the  nature  of  the 
comic,  not  hoping  to  explain  laughter,  which 
must  remain  forever  a  spontaneous  mystery, 
but  only  to  point  out  places  where  this  mystery 
crosses  the  other  mysteries  and  refuses  to  be 
merged  in  them,  keeping  its  own  course  and 
intensifying  the  darkness  of  our  ignorance 
by  its  corruscations.  In  the  first  place  the 
comic  is  about  the  most  durable  vehicle  that 
truth  has  ever  found.  It  pretends  to  deal  with 
momentary  interests  in  terms  of  farce  and 
exaggeration;  and  yet  it  leaves  an  image 
that  strikes  deeper  and  lasts  longer  than 
philosophy. 

In  our  search  for  truth  we  are  continually 
getting  into  vehicles  that  break  down  or  turn 
into  something  else,  even  during  our  transit. 
Let  us  take,  for  example,  the  case  of  Plato's 
dialogues.  How  much  we  have  enjoyed  them, 
how  much  trusted  them !  And  yet  there  comes 
a  time  when  we  feel  about  Plato's  work  that 
it  is  almost  too  well  lighted  and  managed,  too 
filled  with  parlor  elegance.  He  seems  more 
interested  in  the  effects  that  can  be  got  by 
manipulating  philosophy  than  in  any  serious 
truth.  There  is  something  superficial  about 
the  pictures  of  Greek  life  that  you  get  from 
Plato.  The  marble  is  too  white,  the  philos 
ophers  are  too  considerate  of  each  other's 
feelings,  Socrates  is  too  clever,  everything  is  a 
little  arranged.  Greek  life  was  not  quite  like 
164 


THE   COMIC 

that,  and  the  way  to  convince  yourself  of  this 
is  to  read  Aristophanes. 

In  Aristophanes  you  have  the  convincing 
hurly-burly,  the  sweating,  mean,  talented, 
scrambling,  laughing  life  of  the  Mediterranean 
—that  same  life  of  which  you  find  records  in  the 
recent  Cretan  discoveries,  dating  from  2500 
B.  C.,  or  which  you  may  observe  in  the  market 
places  of  Naples  to-day.  Plato's  dialogues  do 
not  give  this  life.  They  give  a  picture  of 
something  that  never  existed,  something  that 
sounds  like  an  enchanted  picture,  a  picture  of 
life  as  it  ought  to  be  for  the  leisure  classes,  but 
as  it  never  has  been  and  never  can  be  while 
the  world  lasts,  even  for  them. 

The  ideas  which  we  carry  in  our  minds 
criticize  each  other,  despite  all  we  can  do  to 
keep  them  apart.  They  attack  and  mutilate 
each  other,  like  the  monsters  in  a  drop  of 
muddy  water,  or  the  soldiers  of  Cadmus  when 
the  stone  of  controversy  was  thrown  among 
them.  It  is  as  hard  to  preserve  the  entente 
cordiale  between  hostile  thoughts  as  between 
hostile  bull-dogs.  We  have  no  sooner  patted 
the  head  of  the  courtly  and  affable  Socrates 
given  to  us  by  Plato — the  perfect  scholar  and 
sweet  gentleman — than  the  vulgarian  Soc 
rates  given  to  us  by  Aristophanes — the  frowzy 
all-nighter,  the  notorious  enemy  to  bathing — 
flies  at  the  throat  of  Plato's  darling  and  leaves 
him  rumpled.  So  far  as  manners  and  customs 

165 


THE  COMIC 

go,  nothing  can  rival  good  comic  description : 
it  supersedes  everything  else.  You  can  neither 
write  nor  preach  it  down,  nor  put  it  down  by 
law.  Hogarth  has  depicted  the  England  of 
the  early  Georges  in  such  a  way  as  to  convince 
us.  No  mortal  vehicle  of  expression  can  upset 
Hogarth. 

When  we  come  to  pictures  of  life  which  belong 
to  a  more  serious  species — to  poetry,  to  his 
tory,  to  religion — we  find  the  same  conflicts 
going  on  in  our  minds:  one  source  criticizes 
another.  One  belief  eats  up  the  next  belief 
as  the  acid  eats  the  plate.  It  is  not  merely 
the  outside  of  Socrates  that  Aristophanes  has 
demolished.  He  has  a  little  damaged  the 
philosophy  of  Socrates.  He  undermines 
Greek  thought:  he  helps  and  urges  us  not  to 
take  it  seriously.  He  thus  becomes  an  ally  of 
the  whole  world  of  later  Christian  thought.  If 
I  were  to  go  to  Athens  to-morrow,  the  first 
man  I  would  seek  out  would  be  Aristophanes. 
He  is  a  modern:  he  is  a  man. 

We  have  been  speaking  of  Greek  thought 
and  Greek  life;  yet  between  that  life  and  our 
selves  there  have  intervened  some  centuries 
of  Christianity,  including  the  Middle  Ages, 
during  which  Jewish  influence  pervaded  and 
absorbed  other  thought.  The  Hebrew  ruled 
and  subdued  in  philosophy,  poetry,  and  reli 
gion.  The  Hebrew  influence  is  the  most 
powerful  influence  ever  let  loose  upon  the 
166 


THE  COMIC 

world.  Every  book  written  since  this  Hebrew 
domination  is  saturated  with  Hebrew.  It  has 
thus  become  impossible  to  see  the  classics  as 
they  were.  Between  them  and  us  in  an  atmos 
phere  of  mordant,  powerful,  Hebraic  thought, 
which  transmutes  and  fantastically  recolors 
them.  How  the  classics  would  have  laughed 
over  our  conception  of  them!  Virgil  was  a 
witch  during  the  Middle  Ages  and  now  he  is 
an  acolyte,  a  person  over  whom  the  modern 
sentimental  school  maunders  in  tears.  The 
classics  would  feel  toward  our  notions  of  them 
somewhat  as  a  Parisian  feels  toward  a  French 
vaudeville  after  it  has  been  prepared  for  the 
American  stage.  Christianity  is  to  blame. 

I  have  perhaps  spoken  as  if  Christianity 
has  blown  over  with  the  Middle  Ages;  but 
it  has  not.  The  Middle  Ages  have  blown 
over;  but  Christianity  seems,  in  some  ways, 
never  to  have  been  understood  before  the 
nineteenth  century.  It  is  upon  us,  sevenfold 
strong.  Its  mysteries  supersede  the  other 
mysteries;  its  rod  threatens  to  eat  up  the 
rods  of  the  other  magicians.  These  tigers 
of  Christian  criticism  within  us  attack  the 
classics.  The  half-formed  objections  to 
Plato  which  I  have  mentioned  are  seriously 
reinforced  by  the  Hebrew  dispensation,  which 
somehow  reduces  the  philosophic  speculations 
of  Greece  to  the  status  of  favors  at  a  cotillion. 
It  is  senseless  to  contrast  Christ  with  Socrates; 
167 


THE   COMIC 

it  is  unfair  and  even  absurd  to  review  Greek 
life  and  thought  by  the  light  of  Hebrew  life 
and  thought.  But  to  do  so  is  inevitable. 
We  are  three  parts  Hebrew  in  our  nature  and 
we  see  the  Mediterranean  culture  with  Hebrew 
eyes.  The  attempts  of  such  persons  as 
Swinburne  and  Pater  to  writhe  themselves 
free  from  the  Hebrew  domination  always 
betray  that  profound  seriousness  which  comes 
from  the  Jew.  These  men  make  a  break 
for  freedom — they  will  be  joyous,  antique, 
and  irresponsible.  Alas,  they  are  sadder  than 
the  Puritans  and  shallower  than  Columbine. 

It  has  become  forever  and  perpetually 
impossible  for  any  one  to  treat  Greek  thought 
on  a  Greek  basis:  the  basis  is  gone.  As  I 
wrote  the  words  a  page  or  two  back  about 
"Comedy  having  been  placed  by  Plato  in 
the  heaven  of  man's  highest  endeavor,"  I 
thought  to  myself,  "Perhaps  I  ought  to  say 
highest  artistic  endeavor."  There  spoke  the 
Jew  monitor  which  dogs  our  classical  studies, 
sniffing  at  them  and  hinting  that  they  are 
trivial.  In  the  eye  of  that  monitor  there  is 
no  room  for  the  comic  in  the  whole  universe: 
there  is  no  such  thing  as  the  comic.  The 
comic  is  something  outside  of  the  Jewish  dis 
pensation,  a  kind  of  irreducible  unreason,  a 
skeptical  or  satanic  element. 

One   would    conclude   from    their   records 
that  the  Jews  were  people  who  never  laughed 
168 


THE   COMIC 

except  ironically.  To  be  sure,  Michal  laughed 
at  David's  dancing,  and  Sara  laughed  at 
the  idea  of  having  a  child,  and  various  people 
in  the  New  Testament  laughed  others  "to 
scorn."  But  noboby  seems  to  have  laughed 
heartily  and  innocently.  One  gets  the  im 
pression  of  a  race  devoid  of  humor.  This 
is  partly  because  it  is  not  the  province  of 
religious  writings  to  record  humor;  but  it  is 
mainly  because  Jewish  thought  condemns 
humor.  Wherever  humor  arises  in  a  Chris 
tian  civilization — as  in  the  popular  Gothic 
humor — it  is  a  local  race-element,  an  unsub 
dued  bit  of  something  foreign  to  Judah. 
Where  the  Bible  triumphs  utterly,  as  in 
Dante  and  Calvin,  there  is  no  humor. 

And  yet  the  comic  survives  in  us.  It 
eludes  the  criticism  of  Christianity  as  the  sun 
light  eludes  the  net.  Yes,  not  only  our  own 
laughter  survives,  but  the  old  classic  comedy 
still  seems  comic — and  more  truly  comic  than 
the  old  lyric  poetry  seems  poetic  or  the  drama 
dramatic.  Ancient  poesy  must  always  be 
humored  and  nursed  a  little;  but  when  the 
comic  strikes  home,  it  is  our  own  comic;  no 
allowances  need  be  made  for  it. 

There  is  a  kind  of  laughter  that  makes  the 
whole  universe  throb.  It  has  in  it  the  im 
mediate  flash  of  the  power  of  God.  We  can 
no  more  understand  it  than  we  can  under 
stand  other  religious  truth.  It  reminds  us 
169 


THE   COMIC 

that  we  are  not  wholly  Jew.  There  is  light 
in  the  world  that  does  not  come  from  Israel; 
nevertheless,  that  this  is  a  part  of  the  same 
light  that  shines  through  Israel  we  surely 
know. 

I  have  not  tried  to  analyze  laughter;  but 
only  to  show  the  mystery  that  surrounds 
its  origin.  Now  a  certain  mystery  surrounds 
all  human  expression.  The  profoundest 
truths  can  only  be  expressed  through  the 
mystery  of  paradox — as  philosophers,  poets, 
prophets,  and  moralists  have  agreed  since 
the  dawn  of  time.  This  saying  sounds  hard; 
but  its  meaning  is  easy.  The  meaning  is 
that  Truth  can  never  be  exactly  stated;  every 
statement  is  a  misfit.  But  truth  can  be 
alluded  to.  A  paradox  says  frankly,  "What 
I  say  here  is  not  a  statement  of  the  truth, 
but  is  a  mere  allusion  to  the  truth."  The 
comic  vehicle  does  the  same.  It  pretends 
only  to  allude  to  the  truth,  and  by  this 
method  makes  a  directer  appeal  to  experience 
than  any  attempted  statement  of  truth  can 
make. 

There  is,  no  doubt,  some  reason  at  the  back 
of  this  strange  fact,  that  our  most  expressive 
language  is  a  mere  series  of  hints  and  gestures 
— that  we  can  only  hope,  whether  by  word  or 
chisel,  to  give,  as  it  were,  a  side  reference  to 
truth.  To  fathom  this  reason  would  be  to 
understand  the  nature  of  life  and  mind. 
170 


THE   COMIC 

I  have  often  thought  that  the  fact  that  life 
does  not  originate  in  us,  but  is  a  thing  supplied 
to  us  from  moment  to  moment — as  the  power 
of  the  electric  current  is  supplied  to  the  light — 
accounts  for  the  paradoxical  nature  of  our 
minds  and  souls.  It  is  a  commonplace  that 
the  poet  is  inspired — that  Orpheus  was  carried 
away  by  the  god.  So  also  it  is  a  commonplace 
that  the  religious  person  is  absorbed  in  the 
will  of  God — as  St.  Paul  said,  his  own  strength 
was  due  to  his  weakness.  So  also  it  is  a  com 
monplace  of  modern  scientific  psychology  that 
unconsciousness  accompanies  high  intellectual 
activity.  Sir  Isaac  Newton  solved  his  prob 
lems  by  the  art  he  had  of  putting  them  off  his 
mind — of  committing  them  to  the  unconscious. 

All  these  are  but  different  aspects  of  the  same 
truth,  and  we  must  regard  consciousness  as 
resistance  to  the  current  of  life.  If  this  be 
true,  it  is  clear  that  any  wilful  attempt  to  tell 
the  truth  must  pro  tanto  defeat  itself,  for  it  is 
only  by  the  surrender  of  our  will  that  truth  be 
comes  effective.  This  idea,  being  a  universal 
idea,  is  illustrated  by  everything;  and  the  less 
you  try  to  understand  it,  the  more  fully  will 
you  understand  it.  In  fact  one  great  diffi 
culty  that  a  child  or  a  man  has  in  learning 
anything,  comes  from  his  trying  too  hard  to 
understand. 

Once  imagine  that  our  understanding  of  a 
thing  comes  from  our  ceasing  to  prevent  our- 
171 


THE   COMIC 

selves  from  understanding  it,  and  we  have  the 
problem  in  its  true  form.  Accept  once  for  all 
that  all  will  is  illusion,  and  that  the  expressive 
power  is  something  that  acts  most  fully  when 
least  impeded  by  will,  and  there  remains  no 
paradox  anywhere.  The  things  we  called 
paradoxes  become  deductions.  Of  course 
St.  Paul's  weakness  was  the  foundation  of  his 
strength;  of  course  Orpheus  was  irresponsible; 
of  course  the  maximum  of  intellectual  power 
will  be  the  maximum  of  unimpeded,  uncon 
scious  activity.  And  as  for  our  Comic,  of 
course — whatever  laughter  may  be  in  itself— 
laughter  will  be  most  strongly  called  forth  by 
anything  that  merely  calls  and  vanishes.  Such 
things  are  jokes,  burlesques,  humor.  They 
state  nothing:  they  assume  inaccuracy:  they 
cry  aloud  and  vanish,  leaving  the  hearer  to 
become  awakened  to  his  own  thoughts. 
They  are  mere  stimuli — mere  gesture  and 
motion,  and  hence  the  very  truest,  very  strong 
est  form  of  human  appeal. 


172 


THE  UNITY  OF  HUMAN  NATURE 


THE  UNITY  OF  HUMAN  NATURE .* 

IF  one  could  stand  on  the  edge  of  the  moon 
and  look  down  through  a  couple  of  thousand 
years  on  human  politics,  it  would  be  apparent 
that  everything  that  happened  on  the  earth 
was  directly  dependent  on  everything  else  that 
happened  there.  Whether  the  Italian  peasant 
shall  eat  salt  with  his  bread,  depends  upon 
Bismarck.  Whether  the  prison  system  of 
Russia  shall  be  improved,  depends  upon  the 
ministry  of  Great  Britain.  If  Lord  Beacons- 
field  is  in  power,  there  is  no  leisure  in  Russia 
for  domestic  reform.  The  lash  is  everywhere 
lifted  in  a  security  furnished  by  the  concur 
rence  of  all  the  influences  upon  the  globe  that 
favor  coercion.  In  like  manner,  the  good  things 
that  happen  are  each  the  product  of  all  extant 
conditions.  Constitutional  government  in 
England  qualifies  the  whole  of  western  Europe. 
Our  slaves  were  not  set  free  without  the  as 
sistance  of  every  liberal  mind  in  Europe; 
and  the  thoughts  which  we  think  in  our  closet 
affect  the  fate  of  the  Boer  in  South  Africa. 
That  Tolstoy  is  to-day  living  unmolested 
upon  his  farm  instead  of  serving  in  a  Siberian 

*  This  was  an  address  delivered  before  the  graduating 
class  at  Hobart  College  in  1900. 

175 


UNITY   OF   HUMAN   NATURE 

mine,  that  Dreyfus  is  alive  and  not  dead,  is 
due  directly  to  the  people  in  this  audience  and 
to  others  like  them  scattered  over  Europe 
and  America. 

The  effect  of  enlightenment  on  tyranny 
is  not  merely  to  make  the  tyrant  afraid  to  be 
cruel,  it  makes  him  not  want  to  be  cruel.  It 
makes  him  see  what  cruelty  is.  And  re 
ciprocally  the  effect  of  cruelty  on  enlighten 
ment  is  to  make  that  enlightenment  grow 
dim.  It  prevents  men  from  seeing  what 
cruelty  is. 

The  Czar  of  Russia  cannot  get  rid  of  your 
influence,  nor  you  of  his.  Every  ukase  he 
signs  makes  allowance  for  you,  and,  on  the 
other  hand,  the  whole  philosophy  of  your 
life  is  tinged  by  him.  You  believe  that  the 
abuses  under  the  Russian  government  are 
inscrutably  different  from  and  worse  than 
our  own;  whereas  both  sets  of  atrocities  are 
identical  in  principle,  and  are  more  alike  in 
fact,  in  taste  and  smell  and  substance  than 
your  prejudice  is  willing  to  admit.  The  ex 
istence  of  Russia  narrows  America's  philos 
ophy,  and  misconduct  by  a  European  power 
may  be  seen  reflected  in  the  moral  tone  of 
your  clergyman  on  the  following  day.  More 
Americans  have  abandoned  their  faith  in  free 
government  since  England  began  to  play  the 
tyrant  in  South  Africa  than  there  were  colon 
ists  in  the  country  in  1776. 
176 


UNITY   OF   HUMAN   NATURE 

Europe  is  all  one  family,  and  speaks,  one 
might  say,  the  same  language.  The  life 
that  has  been  transplanted  to  North  America 
during  the  last  three  centuries,  is  European 
life.  From  your  position  on  the  moon  you 
would  not  be  able  to  understand  what  the 
supposed  differences  were  between  European 
and  American  things,  that  the  Americans 
make  so  much  fuss  over.  You  would  say, 
"I  see  only  one  people,  splashed  over  different 
continents.  The  problems  they  talk  about, 
the  houses  they  live  in,  the  clothes  they  wear, 
seem  much  alike.  Their  education  and  catch 
words  are  identical.  They  are  the  children 
of  the  Classics,  of  Christianity,  and  of  the 
Revival  of  Learning.  They  are  homogeneous, 
and  they  are  growing  more  homogeneous." 

The  subtle  influences  that  modern  nations 
exert  over  one  another  illustrate  the!  unity  of 
life  on  the  globe.  But  if  we  turn  to  ancient 
history  we  find  in  its  bare  outlines  staggering 
proof  of  the  interdependence  of  nations. 
The  Greeks  were  wiped  out.  They  could  not 
escape  their  contemporaries  any  more  than 
we  can  escape  the  existence  of  the  Malays. 
Israel  could  not  escape  Assyria,  nor  Assyria 
Persia,  nor  Persia  Macedonia,  nor  Macedonia 
Rome,  nor  Rome  the  Goths.  Life  is  not  a 
boarding-school  where  a  bad  boy  can  be  dis 
missed  for  the  benefit  of  the  rest.  He  remains. 
He  must  be  dealt  with.  He  is  as  much  here 
12  177 


UNITY   OF   HUMAN   NATURE 

as  we  are  ourselves.  The  whole  of  Europe 
and  Asia  and  South  America  and  every  Malay 
and  every  Chinaman,  Hindoo,  Tartar,  and 
Tagal — of  such  is  our  civilization. 

Let  us  for  the  moment  put  aside  every 
dictate  of  religion  and  political  philosophy. 
Let  us  discard  all  prejudice  and  all  love.  Let 
us  regard  nothing  except  facts.  Does  not 
the  coldest  conclusion  of  science  announce 
the  fact  that  the  world  is  peopled,  and  that 
every  individual  of  that  population  has  an 
influence  as  certain  and  far  more  discoverable 
than  the  influence  of  the  weight  of  his  body 
upon  the  solar  system  ? 

A  Chinaman  lands  in  San  Francisco.  The 
Constitution  of  the  United  States  begins  to 
rock  and  tremble.  What  shall  we  do  with 
him?  The  deepest  minds  of  the  past  must 
be  ransacked  to  the  bottom  to  find  an  answer. 
Every  one  of  seventy  million  Americans  must 
pass  through  a  throe  of  thought  that  leaves 
him  a  modified  man.  The  same  thing  is  true 
when  the  American  lands  in  China.  These 
creatures  have  thus  begun  to  think  of  each 
other.  It  is  unimaginable  that  they  should 
not  hereafter  incessantly  and  never-endingly 
continue  to  think  of  each  other.  And  out  of 
their  thoughts  grows  the  destiny  of  mankind. 

We  have  an  inherited  and  stupid  notion 
that  the  East  does  not  change.  If  Japan  goes 
through  a  transformation  scene  under  our 


UNITY   OF   HUMAN    NATURE 

eyes,  we  still  hold  to  our  prejudice  as  to  the 
immutability  of  the  Chinese.  If  our  own 
people  and  the  European  nations  seem  to  be 
meeting  and  surging  and  reappearing  in  unac 
customed  roles  every  ten  years,  till  modern 
history  looks  like  a  fancy  ball,  we  still  go  on 
muttering  some  old  ignorant  shibboleth  about 
East  and  West,  Magna  Charta,  the  Indian 
Mutiny,  and  Mahomet.  The  chances  are 
that  England  will  be  dead-letter,  and  Russia 
progressive  before  we  have  done  talking.  Of 
a  truth,  when  we  consider  the  rapidity  of 
visible  change  and  the  amplitude  of  time — for 
there  is  plenty  of  time — we  need  not  despair  of 
progress. 

The  true  starting-point  for  the  world's  pro 
gress  will  never  be  reached  by  any  nation  as  a 
whole.  It  exists  and  has  been  reached  in  the 
past  as  it  will  in  the  future  by  individuals 
scattered  here  and  there  in  every  nation.  It 
is  reached  by  those  minds  which  insist  on 
seeing  conditions  as  they  are,  and  which  can 
not  confine  their  thoughts  to  their  own  kitchen, 
or  to  their  own  creed,  or  to  their  own  nation. 
You  will  think  I  have  in  mind  poets  and  philos 
ophers,  for  these  men  take  humanity  as  their 
subject,  and  deal  in  the  general  stuff  of  human 
nature.  But  the  narrow  spirit  in  which  they 
often  do  this  cuts  down  their  influence  to 
parish  limits.  I  mean  rather  those  men  who 
in  private  life  act  out  their  thoughts  and 
179 


UNITY   OF   HUMAN   NATURE 

feelings  as  to  the  unity  of  human  life;  those 
same  thoughts  which  the  poets  and  philoso 
phers  have  expressed  in  their  plays,  their 
sayings,  and  their  visions.  There  have  always 
been  men  who  in  their  daily  life  have  fulfilled 
those  intimations  and  instincts  which,  if  reduced 
to  a  statement,  receive  the  names  of  poetry 
and  religion.  These  men  are  the  cart-horses 
of  progress,  they  devote  their  lives  to  doing 
things  which  can  only  be  justified  or  explained 
by  the  highest  philosophy.  They  proceed  as 
if  all  men  were  their  brothers.  These  practi 
cal  philanthropists  go  plodding  on  through 
each  century  and  leave  the  bones  of  their  char 
acter  mingled  with  the  soil  of  their  civilization. 
See  how  large  the  labors  of  such  men  look 
when  seen  in  historic  perspective.  They  have 
changed  the  world's  public  opinion.  They 
have  moulded  the  world's  institutions  into 
forms  expressive  of  their  will.  I  ask  your 
attention  to  one  of  their  achievements.  We 
have  one  province  of  conduct  in  which  the 
visions  of  the  poets  have  been  reduced  to 
practice — yes,  erected  into  a  department  of 
government — through  the  labors  of  the  philan 
thropists.  They  have  established  the  hos 
pital  and  the  reformatory;  and  these  visible 
bastions  of  philosophy  hold  now  a  more  un 
challenged  place  in  our  civilization  than  the 
Sermon  on  the  Mount  on  which  they  com 
ment. 

180 


UNITY   OF   HUMAN   NATURE 

The  truth  which  the  philanthropists  of  all 
ages  have  felt  is  that  the  human  family  was  a 
unit;  and  this  truth,  being  as  deep  as  human 
nature,  can  be  expressed  in  every  philosophy — 
even  in  the  inverted  utilitarianism  now  in 
vogue.  The  problem  of  how  to  treat  insane 
people  and  criminals  has  been  solved  to  this 
extent,  that  everyone  agrees  that  nothing  must 
be  done  to  them  which  injures  the  survivors. 
That  is  the  reason  we  do  not  kill  them.  It  is 
unpleasant  to  have  them  about,  and  this  un 
pleasantness  can  be  cured  only  by  our  devotion 
to  them.  We  must  either  help  the  wretched 
or  we  ourselves  become  degenerate.  They 
have  thus  become  a  positive  means  of  civilizing 
the  modern  world;  for  the  instinct  of  self- 
preservation  has  led  men  to  deal  with  this 
problem  in  the  only  practical  way. 

Put  a  Chinaman  into  your  hospital  and  he 
will  be  cared  for.  You  may  lie  awake  at  night 
drawing  up  reasons  for  doing  something 
different  with  this  disgusting  Chinaman — who, 
somehow,  is  in  the  world  and  is  thrown  into 
your  care,  your  hospital,  your  thought — but 
the  machinery  of  your  own  being  is  so  con 
structed  that  if  you  take  any  other  course  with 
him  than  that  which  you  take  with  your  own 
people,  your  institution  will  instantly  lose  its 
meaning;  you  would  not  have  the  face  to  beg 
money  for  its  continuance  in  the  following  year. 
The  logic  of  this,  which,  if  you  like,  is  the  logic 
181 


UNITY   OF   HUMAN   NATURE 

of  self-protection  under  the  illusion  of  self-sacri 
fice,  is  the  logic  which  is  at  the  bottom  of  all 
human  progress.  I  dislike  to  express  this 
idea  in  its  meanest  form;  but  I  know  there 
are  some  professors  of  political  economy  here, 
and  I  wish  to  be  understood.  The  utility  of 
hospitals  is  not  to  cure  the  sick.  It  is  to  teach 
mercy.  The  veneration  for  hospitals  is  not 
accorded  to  them  because  they  cure  the  sick,  but 
because  they  stand  for  love,  and  responsibility. 

The  appeal  of  physical  suffering  makes  the 
strongest  attack  on  our  common  humanity. 
Even  zealots  and  sectaries  are  touched.  The 
practice  and  custom  of  this  kind  of  mercy 
have  therefore  become  established,  while 
other  kinds  of  mercy  which  require  more 
imagination  are  still  in  their  infancy.  But 
at  the  bottom  of  every  fight  for  principle  you 
will  find  the  same  sentiment  of  mercy.  If 
you  take  a  slate  and  pencil  and  follow  out 
the  precise  reasons  and  consequences  of  the 
thing,  you  will  always  find  that  a  practical 
and  effective  love  for  mankind  is  working  out 
a  practical  self-sacrifice.  The  average  man 
cannot  do  the  sum,  he  does  not  follow  the 
reasoning,  but  he  knows  the  answer.  The 
deed  strikes  into  his  soul  with  a  mathematical 
impact,  and  he  responds  like  a  tuning-fork 
when  its  note  is  struck. 

Everyone  knows  that  self-sacrifice  is  a 
virtue.  The  child  takes  his  nourishment 
182 


UNITY   OF   HUMAN   NATURE 

from  the  tale  of  heroism  as  naturally  as  he 
takes  milk.  He  feels  that  the  deed  was  done 
for  his  sake.  He  adopts  it:  it  is  his  own. 
The  nations  have  always  stolen  their  myths 
from  one  another,  and  claimed  each  other's 
heroes.  It  has  required  all  the  world's  heroes 
to  make  the  world's  ear  sensitive  to  new 
statements,  illustrations  and  applications  of 
the  logic  of  progress.  Yet  their  work  has 
been  so  well  done  that  all  of  us  respond  to  the 
old  truths  in  however  new  a  form.  Not 
France  alone  but  all  modern  society  owes  a 
debt  of  gratitude  to  Zola  for  his  rescue  of 
Dreyfus.  The  whole  world  would  have 
been  degraded  and  set  back,  the  whole  world 
made  less  decent  and  habitable,  but  for  those 
few  Frenchmen  who  took  their  stand  against 
corruption. 

Now  the  future  of  civil  society  upon  the 
earth  depends  upon  the  application  to  inter 
national  politics  of  this  familiar  idea,  which 
we  see  prefigured  in  our  mythology,  and 
monumentalized  in  our  hospitals — the  prin 
ciple  that  what  is  done  for  one  is  done  for  all. 
When  you  say  a  thing  is  "  right,"  you  appeal 
to  mankind.  What  you  mean  is  that  every 
one  is  at  stake.  Your  attack  upon  wrong 
amounts  to  saying  that  some  one  has  been 
left  out  in  the  calculation.  Both  at  home 
and  abroad  you  are  always  pleading  for 
mercy,  and  the  plea  gains  such  a  wide  response 

183 


UNITY   OF   HUMAN   NATURE 

that  some  tyranny  begins  to  totter,  and  its 
engines  are  turned  upon  you  to  get  you  to 
stop.  This  outcry  against  you  is  the  measure 
of  your  effectiveness.  If  you  imitate  Zola 
and  attack  some  nuisance  in  this  town  to 
morrow,  you  will  bring  on  every  symptom 
and  have  every  experience  of  the  Dreyfus 
affair.  The  cost  is  the  same,  for  cold  looks  are 
worse  than  imprisonment.  The  emancipa 
tion  of  the  reformer  is  the  same,  for  if  a  man 
can  resist  the  influences  of  his  townsfolk,  if 
he  can  cut  free  from  the  tyranny  of  neighbor 
hood  gossip,  the  world  has  no  terrors  for 
him;  there  is  no  second  inquisition.  The 
public  influence  is  the  same,  for  every  citizen 
of  that  town  can  thereafter  look  a  town  officer 
in  the  face  with  more  self-respect.  But  not 
to  townsmen,  nor  to  neighboring  towns,  nor  to 
Parisians  is  this  force  confined.  It  goes  out 
in  all  directions,  continuously.  The  man 
is  in  communication  with  the  world.  This 
impulse  of  communication  with  all  men  is  at 
the  bottom  of  every  ambition.  The  injustice, 
cruelty,  oppression  in  the  world  are  all  dif 
ferent  forms  of  the  same  non-conductor, 
that  prevents  utterances,  that  stops  messages, 
that  strikes  dumb  the  speaker  and  deafens 
the  listener.  You  will  find  that  it  makes 
no  difference  whether  the  non-conductor  be 
a  selfish  oligarchy,  a  military  autocracy,  or  a 
commercial  ring.  The  voice  of  humanity 
184 


UNITY   OF   HUMAN   NATURE 

is  stifled  by  corruption:  and  corruption  is 
only  an  evil  because  it  stifles  men. 

Try  to  raise  a  voice  that  shall  be  heard 
from  here  to  Albany  and  watch  what  it  is  that 
comes  forward  to  shut  off  the  sound.  It  is 
not  a  German  sergeant,  nor  a  Russian  officer 
of  the  precinct.  It  is  a  note  from  a  friend 
of  your  father's  offering  you  a  place  in  his 
office.  This  is  your  warning  from  the  secret 
police.  Why,  if  any  of  you  young  gentlemen 
have  a  mind  to  make  himself  heard  a  mile  off, 
you  must  make  a  bonfire  of  your  reputations 
and  a  close  enemy  of  most  men  who  wish  you 
well. 

And  what  will  you  get  in  return?  Well, 
if  I  must  for  the  benefit  of  the  economist, 
charge  you  with  some  selfish  gain,  I  will 
say  that  you  get  the  satisfaction  of  having 
been  heard,  and  that  this  is  the  whole  possible 
scope  of  human  ambition. 

When  I  was  asked  to  make  this  address  I 
wondered  what  I  had  to  say  to  you  boys  who 
are  graduating.  And  I  think  I  have  one 
thing  to  say.  If  you  wish  to  be  useful,  never 
take  a  course  that  will  silence  you.  Refuse 
to  learn  anything  that  you  cannot  proclaim. 
Refuse  to  accept  anything  that  implies  collu 
sion,  whether  it  be  a  clerkship  or  a  curacy,  a 
legal  fee  or  a  post  in  a  university.  Retain 
the  power  of  speech,  no  matter  what  other 
power  you  lose.  If  you  can  take  this  course, 

185 


UNITY   OF   HUMAN   NATURE 

and  in  so  far  as  you  take  it,  you  will  bless  this 
country.  In  so  far  as  you  depart  from  this 
course  you  become  dampers,  mutes,  and 
hooded  executioners.  As  for  your  own  private 
character  it  will  be  preserved  by  such  a  course. 
Crime  you  cannot  commit,  for  crime  gags  you. 
Collusion  with  any  abuse  gags  you.  As  a  prac 
tical  matter  a  mere  failure  to  speak  out  upon 
occasions  where  no  opinion  is  asked  or  ex 
pected  of  you,  and  when  the  utterance  of 
an  uncalled-for  suspicion  is  odious,  will  often 
hold  you  to  a  concurrence  in  palpable  iniquity. 
It  will  bind  and  gag  you  and  lay  you  dumb 
and  in  shackles  like  the  veriest  serf  in  Russia. 
I  give  you  this  one  rule  of  conduct.  Do 
what  you  will,  but  speak  out  always.  Be 
shunned,  be  hated,  be  ridiculed,  be  scared, 
be  in  doubt,  but  don't  be  gagged. 

The  choice  of  Hercules  was  made  when 
Hercules  was  a  lad.  It  cannot  be  made  late 
in  life.  It  will  perhaps  come  for  each  one  of 
you  within  the  next  eighteen  months.  I  have 
seen  ten  years  of  young  men  who  rush  out  into 
the  world  with  their  messages,  and  when  they 
find  how  deaf  the  world  is,  they  think  they 
must  save  their  strength  and  wait.  They 
believe  that  after  a  while  they  will  be  able 
to  get  up  on  some  little  eminence  from  which 
they  can  make  themselves  heard.  "In  a 
few  years,"  reasons  one  of  them,  "I  shall 
have  gained  a  standing,  and  then  I  will  use 
186 


UNITY   OF  HUMAN   NATURE 

my  power  for  good."  Next  year  comes  and 
with  it  a  strange  discovery.  The  man  has 
lost  his  horizon  of  thought.  His  ambition 
has  evaporated;  he  has  nothing  to  say.  The 
great  occasion  that  was  to  have  let  him  loose  on 
society  was  some  little  occasion  that  nobody 
saw,  some  moment  in  which  he  decided  to 
obtain  a  standing.  The  great  battle  of  a 
lifetime  has  been  fought  and  lost  over  a  silent 
scruple.  But  for  this,  the  man  might,  within 
a  few  years,  have  spoken  to  the  nation  with 
the  voice  of  an  archangel.  What  was  he 
waiting  for?  Did  he  think  that  the  laws  of 
nature  were  to  be  changed  for  him?  Did 
he  think  that  a  "notice  of  trial"  would  be 
served  on  him?  Or  that  some  spirit  would 
stand  at  his  elbow  and  say,  "Now's  your 
time?"  The  time  of  trial  is  always.  Now 
is  the  appointed  time.  And  the  compensa 
tion  for  beginning  at  once  is  that  your  voice 
carries  at  once.  You  do  not  need  a  standing. 
It  would  not  help  you.  Within  less  time 
than  you  can  see  it,  you  will  have  been  heard. 
The  air  is  filled  with  sounding-boards  and 
the  echoes  are  flying.  It  is  ten  to  one  that 
you  have  but  to  lift  your  voice  to  be  heard  in 
California,  and  that  from  where  you  stand. 
A  bold  plunge  will  teach  you  that  the  visions 
of  the  unity  of  human  nature  which  the  poets 
have  sung,  were  not  the  fictions  of  their  imagi 
nation,  but  a  record  of  what  they  saw.  Deal 
187 


UNITY   OF   HUMAN   NATURE 

with  the  world,  and  you  will  discover  their 
reality.  Speak  to  the  world,  and  you  will 
hear  their  echo. 

Social  and  business  prominence  look  like 
advantages,  and  so  they  are  if  you  want 
money.  But  if  you  want  moral  influence  you 
may  bless  God  you  have  not  got  them.  They 
are  the  payment  with  which  the  world  sub 
sidizes  men  to  keep  quiet,  and  there  is  no  sub- 
tilty  or  cunning  by  which  you  can  get  them 
without  paying  in  silence.  This  is  the  great 
law  of  humanity,  that  has  existed  since  history 
began,  and  will  last  while  man  lasts — evil, 
selfishness,  and  silence  are  one  thing. 

The  world  is  learning,  largely  through 
American  experience  that  freedom  in  the 
form  of  government  is  no  guarantee  against 
abuse,  tyranny,  cruelty,  and  greed.  The 
old  sufferings,  the  old  passions  are  in  full  blast 
among  us.  What,  then,  are  the  advantages 
of  self-government?  The  chief  advantage  is 
that  self-government  enables  a  man  in  his 
youth,  in  his  own  town,  within  the  radius  of  his 
first  public  interests,  to  fight  the  important 
battle  of  his  life  while  his  powers  are  at  their 
strongest,  and  the  powers  of  oppression  are  at 
their  weakest.  If  a  man  acquires  the  power  of 
speech  here,  if  he  says  what  he  means  now,  if  he 
makes  his  point  and  dominates  his  surround 
ings  at  once,  his  voice  will,  as  a  matter  of  fact, 
be  heard  instantly  in  a  very  wide  radius.  And 
188 


UtflTY   OF   HUMAN  NATURE 

so  he  walks  up  into  a  new  sphere  and  begins 
to  accomplish  greater  things.  He  does  this 
through  the  very  force  of  his  insistence  on  the 
importance  of  small  things.  The  reason  for 
his  graduation  is  not  far  to  seek.  A  man  can 
not  reach  the  hearts  of  his  townsfolks,  without 
using  the  whole  apparatus  of  the  world  of 
thought.  He  cannot  tell  or  act  the  truth  in  his 
own  town  without  enlisting  every  power  for 
truth,  and  setting  in  vibration  the  cords  that 
knit  that  town  into  the  world's  history.  He  is 
forced  to  find  and  strike  the  same  note  which 
he  would  use  on  some  great  occasion  when 
speaking  for  all  mankind.  A  man  who  has 
won  a  town-fight  is  a  veteran,  and  our  country 
to-day  is  full  of  these  young  men.  To-morrow 
their  force  will  show  in  national  politics,  and  in 
that  moment  the  fate  of  the  Malay,  the  food  of 
the  Russian  prisoner,  the  civilization  of  South 
Africa,  and  the  future  of  Japan  will  be  seen 
to  have  been  in  issue.  These  world  problems 
are  now  being  settled  in  the  contest  over  the 
town-pump  in  a  western  village.  I  think  it 
likely  that  the  next  thirty  years  will  reveal  the 
recuperative  power  of  American  institutions. 
One  of  you  young  men  may  easily  become  a 
reform  President,  and  be  carried  into  office  and 
held  in  office  by  the  force  of  that  private  opin 
ion  which  is  now  being  sown  broadcast  through 
out  the  country  by  just  such  men  as  yourselves. 
You  will  concede  the  utility  of  such  a  President. 
189 


UNITY   OF   HUMAN  NATURE 

Yet  it  would  not  be  the  man  but  the  masses 
behind  him  that  did  his  work. 

Democracy  thus  lets  character  loose  upon 
society  and  shows  us  that  in  the  realm  of 
natural  law  there  is  nothing  either  small  or 
great :  and  this  is  the  chief  value  of  democracy. 
In  America  the  young  man  meets  the  struggle 
between  good  and  evil  in  the  easiest  form  in 
which  it  was  ever  laid  before  men.  The 
cruelties  of  interest  and  of  custom  have  with  us 
no  artificial  assistance  from  caste,  creed,  race 
prejudice.  Our  frame  of  government  is 
drawn  in  close  accordance  with  the  laws  of 
nature.  By  our  documents  we  are  dedicated 
to  mankind;  and  hence  it  is  that  we  can  so 
easily  feel  the  pulse  of  the  world  and  lay  our 
hand  on  the  living  organism  of  humanity. 


190 


THE  DOCTRINE  OF 
NON-RESISTANCE 


THE  DOCTRINE  OF  NON- 
RESISTANCE* 

A  DOGMA  is  a  phrase  that  condenses  much 
thought.  It  is  a  short  way  of  stating  a  great 
truth,  and  is  supposed  to  recall  that  truth 
to  the  mind.  Like  a  talisman  it  is  to  be 
repeated.  Open  sesame — and  some  great 
mystery  of  life  is  unlocked. 

A  dogma  is  like  a  key  to  a  map,  a  thread 
to  a  labyrinth.  It  is  all  that  some  man  has 
brought  back  from  a  spiritual  exaltation  in 
which  he  has  had  a  vision  of  how  the  world  is 
made;  and  he  repeats  it  and  teaches  it  as  a 
digest  of  his  vision,  a  short  and  handy  sum 
mary  and  elixir  by  which  he,  and  as  he  thinks 
anyone  else,  can  go  back  into  his  exaltation 
and  see  the  truth.  To  him  the  words  seem 
universally  true — true  at  all  times  and  in  any 
aspect.  Indeed,  all  experience,  all  thought, 
all  conduct  seem  to  him  to  be  made  up  of  mere 
illustrations,  proofs,  and  reminiscences  of 
the  dogma. 

It  is  probable  that  all  the  dogmas  were 
originally  shots  at  the  same  truth,  nets  cast 
over  the  same  truth,  digests  of  the  same 

*This  was  an  address  which  I  delivered  before  the 
International  Metaphysical  League  eight  or  nine  years 
ago. 

13  193 


NON-RESISTANCE 

vision.  There  is  no  other  way  of  accounting 
for  their  power.  If  the  doctrine  of  the 
Trinity  signified  no  more  than  what  I  can 
see  in  it,  it  would  never  have  been  regarded  as 
important.  Unless  the  words  "Salvation  by 
Grace"  had  at  one  time  stood  for  the  most 
powerful  conviction  of  the  most  holy  minds, 
we  should  never  have  heard  the  phrase. 
Our  nearest  way  to  come  at  the  meaning  of 
such  things  is  to  guess  that  the  dogmas  are 
the  dress  our  own  thought  might  have  worn, 
had  we  lived  in  times  when  they  arose.  We 
must  translate  our  best  selves  back  into  the 
past  in  order  to  understand  the  phrases. 

Of  course,  these  dogmas,  like  our  own 
dogmas,  are  no  sooner  uttered  than  they 
change.  Somebody  traduces  them,  or  ex 
pounds  them,  or  founds  a  sect  or  a  prosecu 
tion  upon  them.  Then  comes  a  new  vision 
and  a  new  digest.  And  so  the  controversy 
goes  rolling  down  through  the  centuries, 
changing  its  forms  but  not  its  substance. 
And  it  has  rolled  down  to  us,  and  we  are 
asking  the  question,  "What  is  truth?"  as 
eagerly,  as  sincerely,  and  as  patiently  as  we 
may. 

Truth  is  a  state  of  mind.  All  of  us  have 
known  it  and  have  known  the  loss  of  it.  We 
enter  it  unconsciously;  we  pass  out  of  it  before 
we  are  aware.  It  comes  and  goes  like  a 
searchlight  from  an  unknown  source.  At  one 
194 


NON-RESISTANCE 

moment  we  see  all  things  clearly,  at  the  next 
we  are  fighting  a  fog.  At  one  moment  we 
are  as  weak  as  rags,  at  the  next  we  are  in 
contact  with  some  explaining  power  that 
courses  through  us,  making  us  feel  like  elec 
trical  conductors,  or  the  agents  of  universal 
will.  In  the  language  of  Christ  these  latter 
feelings  are  moments  of  "faith";  and  faith 
is  one  of  the  very  few  words  which  he  used 
a  great  many  times  in  just  the  same  sense, 
as  a  name  for  a  certain  kind  of  experience. 
He  did  not  define  the  word,  but  he  seems  to 
have  given  it  a  specific  meaning. 

The  state  of  mind  in  which  Christ  lived  is 
the  truth  he  taught.  How  he  reached  that 
state  of  mind  we  do  not  know;  how  he  main 
tained  it,  and  what  it  is,  he  spent  the  last  two 
years  of  his  life  in  expressing.  Whatever  he 
was  saying  or  doing,  he  was  always  conveying 
the  same  truth — the  whole  of  it.  It  was 
never  twice  alike  and  yet  it  was  always  the 
same;  even  when  he  spoke  very  few  words,  as 
to  Pilate  "Thou  sayest  it,"  or  to  Peter  "Feed 
my  sheep";  or  when  he  said  nothing,  but 
wrote  on  the  ground.  He  not  only  expressed 
this  truth  because  he  could  not  help  expressing 
it,  but  because  he  wished  and  strove  to  express 
it.  His  teaching,  his  parables,  his  sayings 
showed  that  he  spared  no  pains  to  think  of 
illustrations  and  suggestions;  he  used  every 
device  of  speech  to  make  his  thought  carry. 


NON-RESISTANCE 

Take  his  directest  words:  "Thou  shalt  love 
the  Lord  thy  God";  "Love  your  enemies.'* 
One  might  call  these  things  descriptions  of  his 
own  state  of  mind.  Or  take  his  philosophical 
remarks.  They  are  not  merely  statements 
as  to  what  truth  is;  but  hints  as  to  how  it  must 
be  sought,  how  the  state  of  mind  can  be  entered 
into  and  in  what  it  consists.  "Whosoever 
shall  lose  his  life  shall  preserve  it."  "That 
which  cometh  out  of  the  mouth,  this  defileth  a 
man."  Or  more  prosaically  still.  "If  any 
man  shall  do  his  will,  he  shall  know  of  the  doc 
trine."  To  this  class  belongs  the  expression 
"Resist  not  evil." 

The  parables  are  little  anecdotes  which 
serve  to  remind  the  hearer  of  his  own  moments 
of  tenderness  and  self-sacrifice.  The  Lost 
Sheep,  the  Prodigal  Son,  the  Good  Samaritan, 
the  Repentant  Sinner,  are  illustrations  of 
Christ's  way  of  feeling  toward  human  nature. 
They  are  less  powerful  than  his  words  and  acts, 
because  no  constructed  thing  has  the  power  of 
a  real  thing.  The  reply  of  the  Greek  woman 
who  besought  Christ  to  cure  her  daughter, 
"  Yes,  Lord,  yet  the  dogs  under  the  table  eat  of 
the  children's  crumbs,"  is  one  of  the  most 
affecting  things  in  the  New  Testament.  It  is 
more  powerful  than  the  tale  of  the  Prodigal 
Son.  But  you  will  see  that  if  the  Prodigal's 
father  had  been  a  real  father,  and  the  Greek 
196 


NON-RESISTANCE 

mother  had  been  a  personage  in  a  parable,  the 
power  would  have  been  the  other  way. 

And  so  it  is  that  Christ's  most  powerful 
means  of  conveying  his  thought  was  neither 
by  his  preaching  nor  by  his  parables;  but  by 
what  he  himself  said  and  did  incidentally. 
This  expressed  his  doctrine  because  his  state 
of  feeling  was  his  doctrine.  The  things 
Christ  did  by  himself  and  the  words  he  said 
to  himself,  these  things  are  Christianity — his 
washing  the  disciples'  feet,  " Forgive  them,  for 
they  know  not  what  they  do,"  his  crucifixion. 

I  have  recalled  all  these  sayings  and  acts  of 
Christ  almost  at  random.  They  seem  to  me 
to  be  equivalent  one  to  another  as  a  thousand 
is  equivalent  to  a  thousand.  They  are  all 
messages  sent  out  by  the  same  man  in  the 
same  state  of  feeling.  If  he  had  lived  longer, 
there  would  have  been  more  of  them.  If  you 
should  summarize  them  all  into  a  philosophy 
and  then  reduce  that  philosophy  to  a  phrase, 
you  would  have  another  dogma. 

The  reason  I  called  this  lecture  Non-resist 
ance  instead  of  using  some  more  general 
religious  title,  is  that  I  happened  to  be  led  into 
re-examining  the  meaning  of  Christ's  sayings 
through  his  phrase  "Resist  not  evil;  but  over 
come  evil  with  good."  It  came  about  in  the 
course  of  many  struggles  over  practical  re 
forms.  I  had  not  the  smallest  religious  or 
theoretical  bias  in  entering  the  field  of  politics. 
197 


NON-RESISTANCE 

Here  were  certain  actual  cruelties,  injurious 
things  done  by  particular  men,  in  plain  sight. 
They  ought  to  be  stopped. 

The  question  is  how  to  do  it.  First  you 
go  to  the  wrongdoers  and  beg  them  to  stop, 
and  they  will  not  stop.  Then  to  the  officials 
in  authority  over  them,  with  the  same  result. 
"Remove  these  officials"  is  now  your  con 
clusion,  and  you  go  and  join  the  party  that 
keeps  them  in  power;  for  you  intend  to  induce 
that  party  to  change  them.  You  now  engage 
in  infinitely  long,  exhausting  struggles  with 
the  elements  of  wickedness,  which  seem 
to  be  the  real  cause  and  support  of  those 
injuries  which  you  are  trying  to  stop.  You 
make  no  headway;  you  find  you  are  wasting 
force;  you  are  fighting  at  a  disadvantage; 
all  your  energies  are  exhausted  in  antagonism. 
It  occurs  to  you  to  join  the  other  party,  and 
induce  that  party  to  advocate  a  positive  good, 
whereby  the  people  may  be  appealed  to  and 
the  iniquities  voted  down.  But  your  trouble 
here  begins  afresh,  for  it  seems  as  hard  to 
induce  the  "outs"  to  make  a  square  attack 
on  the  evil  as  it  is  to  get  the  "ins"  to  desist 
from  doing  the  evil.  Your  struggle,  your 
antagonism,  your  waste  of  energy  continues. 
At  last  you  leave  the  outs  and  form  a  new 
party,  a  reform  party  of  your  own.  Merciful 
heavens!  neither  will  this  new  party  attack 
wickedness.  Your  mind,  your  thought,  your 


NON-RESISTANCE 

time  is  still  taken  up  in  resisting  the  influences 
which  your  old  enemies  are  bringing  to  bear 
upon  your  new  friends. 

I  had  got  as  far  as  this  in  the  experience 
and  had  come  to  see  plainly  that  there  was 
somewhere  a  mistake  in  my  method.  It 
was  a  mistake  to  try  to  induce  others  to  act. 
The  thing  to  do  was  to  act  myself,  alone  and 
directly,  without  waiting  for  help.  I  should 
thus  at  least  be  able  to  do  what  f  knew  to  be 
right;  and  perhaps  this  was  the  strongest 
appeal  I  could  make  to  anyone.  The  thing 
to  do  was  to  run  independent  candidates  and 
ask  the  public  to  support  good  men.  Then 
there  occurred  to  me  the  phrase,  "  Resist  not 
evil,"  and  the  phrase  seemed  to  explain  the 
experience. 

What  had  I  been  doing  all  these  years  but 
wrangling  over  evil?  I  had  a  system  that 
pitted  me  in  a  ring  against  certain  agencies 
of  corruption  and  led  to  unending  antagonism. 
The  phrase  not  only  explained  what  was 
wrong  with  the  whole  system,  but  what  was 
wrong  with  every  human  contact  that  occurred 
under  it.  The  more  you  thought  of  it,  the 
truer  it  seemed.  It  was  not  merely  true  of 
politics,  it  was  true  of  all  human  intercourse. 
The  politics  of  New  York  bore  the  same  sort 
of  relation  to  this  truth  that  a  kodak  does  to 
the  laws  of  optics.  Our  politics  were  a  mere 
illustration  of  it.  The  phrase  seemed  to 
199 


NON-RESISTANCE 

explain  everything  either  wrong  or  mistaken 
that  I  had  ever  done  in  my  life.  To  meet 
selfishness  with  selfishness,  anger  with  anger, 
irritation  with  irritation,  that  was  the  harm. 
But  the  saying  was  not  exhausted  yet.  The 
phrase  passed  over  into  physiology  and  showed 
how  to  cure  a  cramp  in  a  muscle  or  stop  a 
headache.  It  was  true  as  religion,  true  as 
pathology,  and  true  as  to  everything  between 
them.  I  felt  as  a  modern  mathematician 
might  feel,  who  should  find  inscribed  in  an 
Egyptian  temple  a  mathematical  formula 
which  not  only  included  all  he  knew,  but 
showed  that  all  he  knew  was  a  mere  stum 
bling  comment  on  the  ancient  science. 

What  mind  was  it  that  walked  the  earth 
and  put  the  sum  of  wisdom  into  three  words  ? 
By  what  process  was  it  done?  The  im 
personal  precision  and  calm  of  the  statement 
give  it  the  quality  of  geometry,  and  yet  it 
expresses  nothing  but  human  feeling.  I 
suppose  that  Christ  arrived  at  the  remark 
by  simple  introspection.  The  impulse  which 
he  felt  in  himself  to  oppose  evil  with  evil — he 
puts  his  finger  on  that  impulse  as  the  crucial 
danger.  There  is  in  the  phrase  an  extreme 
care,  as  if  he  were  explaining  a  mechanism. 
He  seems  to  be  saying  "If  you  wish  to  open 
the  door,  you  must  lift  the  latch  before  you 
pull  the  handle.  If  you  wish  to  do  good,  you 
must  resist  evil  with  good,  not  with  evil." 
200 


NON-RESISTANCE 

It  is  the  same  with  his  other  sayings. 
They  are  almost  dry,  they  are  so  accurate. 
"  Whosoever  looketh  on  a  woman  to  lust 
after  her  hath  committed  adultery  with  her 
already  in  his  heart";  the  analysis  of  emotion 
could  hardly  be  carried  farther.  "How 
hard  it  is  for  them  that  trust  in  riches  to 
enter  into  the  Kingdom  of  God";  here  is 
neither  exaggeration  nor  epigram.  "Thy 
faith  hath  made  thee  whole";  a  statement  of 
fact.  "Knock  and  it  shall  be  opened  unto 
you";  this  is  the  summary  of  Christ's  whole 
life  down  to  the  time  his  teaching  began. 
He  had  knocked  and  it  had  been  opened  to 
him.  He  had  wished  to  make  men  better, 
and  inasmuch  as  he  wished  it  harder  than 
anyone  else  before  or  since  has  wished  it,  he 
got  farther  than  anyone  toward  an  under 
standing  of  how  to  do  it.  The  effectiveness 
of  his  thought  has  been  due  to  its  coherence. 
He  was  able  to  draw  the  sky  together  over  any 
subject  till  all  the  light  fell  on  one  point. 
Then  he  said  what  he  saw.  Every  question 
was  shown  to  break  up  into  the  same  crystals 
if  subjected  to  the  same  pressure.  Nor 
does  his  influence  upon  the  world  present 
any  anomaly.  It  is  entirely  due  to  ordinary 
causes.  Every  man's  influence  depends  upon 
the  depth  of  his  will;  for  this  determines  his 
power  of  concentration.  The  controlled  force 
that  could  contract  Christ's  own  mind  to  so 
201 


NON-RESISTANCE 

small  a  focus,  brings  down  to  the  same  focus 
other  minds  of  less  coherence  than  his.  This 
is  will;  this  is  leadership;  this  is  power. 

Yet  in  spite  of  his  will  there  were  plenty  of 
things  that  Christ  himself  could  not  do,  as, 
for  instance,  change  the  world  at  once,  or 
change  it  at  all  except  through  the  slow  proc 
ess  of  personal  influence.  He  could  not 
heal  people  who  had  no  faith,  or  get  followers 
except  by  going  into  the  highways  and  hedges 
after  them.  And  his  whole  life  is  as  valuable 
in  showing  what  cannot  be  done,  as  in  show 
ing  what  can  be  done.  If  you  love  your 
fellow-men  and  wish  to  benefit  them,  you 
will  find  that  the  ways  in  which  it  is  possible 
to  do  this  are  not  many.  You  can  do  harm 
in  many  ways,  good  only  in  one. 

The  world  is  full  of  people  who  want  to  do 
good,  and  men  are  constantly  re-discovering 
Christ.  This  intelligence,  superior  to  our 
own,  possesses  and  utilizes  us.  There  is 
always  more  danger  of  his  influence  being 
perverted  than  of  its  dying  out;  for  as  men 
begin  to  discover  the  scope  and  horizon  of 
his  thought  they  are  tempted  to  becloud  it 
with  commentary.  They  wish  to  say  what 
he  meant,  whereas  he  has  said  it  himself. 
We  think  to  explain  something  whose  value 
is  that  it  explains  us.  If  we  understood  him, 
very  likely  we  should  say  nothing. 

The  mistake  Christians  make  is  that  they 
202 


NON-RESISTANCE 

strive  to  follow  Christ  as  a  gnat  follows  a  candle. 
No  man  ought  to  follow  Christ  in  this  way. 
A  man  ought  to  follow  truth,  and  when  he 
does  this,  he  will  find  that,  as  he  gropes  his 
way  through  life,  most  of  the  light  that  falls 
on  the  path  in  front  of  him,  and  moves  as  he 
moves,  comes  from  the  mind  of  Christ.  But 
if  one  is  to  learn  from  that  mind  one  must 
take  it  as  a  lens  through  which  to  view  truth; 
not  as  truth  itself.  We  do  not  look  at  a  lens, 
but  through  it. 

There  are  moments  in  each  of  our  lives  when 
all  the  things  that  Christ  said  seem  clear, 
sensible,  relevant.  The  use  of  his  sayings  is  to 
remind  us  of  these  moments  and  carry  us 
back  into  them.  The  danger  of  his  sayings  is 
lest  we  rely  upon  them  as  final  truth.  They 
are  no  more  truth  than  the  chemical  equiva 
lents  for  food  are  food,  or  than  certain  symbols 
of  dynamics  are  the  power  of  Niagara.  At 
those  moments  when  the  real  Niagara  is  upon 
us  we  must  keep  our  minds  bent  on  how  to  do 
good  to  our  fellow-men;  not  the  partial  good 
of  material  benevolence,  but  the  highest  good 
we  know.  The  thoughts  and  habits  we  thus 
form  and  work  out,  painfully  plotting  over 
them,  revising,  renewing,  remodeling  them, 
become  our  personal  church.  This  is  our 
own  religion,  this  is  our  clue  to  truth,  this  is 
the  avenue  through  which  we  may  pass  back  to 
truth  and  possess  it.  No  other  cord  will  hold 
203 


NON-RESISTANCE 

except  the  one  a  man  has  woven  himself.  No 
other  key  will  serve  except  the  one  a  man  has 
forged  himself. 

Christ  was  able  to  hold  a  prism  perfectly 
still  in  his  hand  so  as  to  dissolve  a  ray  of  light 
into  its  elements.  Every  time  he  speaks,  he 
splits  open  humanity,  as  a  man  might  crack  a 
nut  and  show  the  kernel.  The  force  of 
human  feeling  behind  these  sayings  can  be 
measured  only  by  their  accomplishments. 
They  have  been  re-arranging  and  overturning 
human  society  ever  since.  By  this  most 
unlikely  means  of  quiet  demonstration  in 
word  and  deed,  did  he  unlock  this  gigantic 
power.  The  bare  fragments  of  his  talk  open 
the  sluices  of  our  minds;  they  overwhelm 
and  re-create.  That  was  his  method.  The 
truth  which  he  conveyed  with  such  metaphys 
ical  accuracy  lives  now  in  the  living.  Very 
likely  we  cannot  express  it  in  dogmas,  for 
such  intellect  as  it  takes  to  utter  a  dogma  is  not 
in  us.  But  we  need  have  no  fear  for  our  power 
of  expressing  it.  It  is  enough  for  us  to  see 
truth;  for  if  we  see  it,  everything  we  do  will 
express  it. 


204 


CLIMATE 


CLIMATE. 


THE  influence  of  the  planets,  of  deities  good 
and  bad,  of  spells  and  incantations — of  fatal 
or  beneficial  forces  suddenly  unlocked  and,  as 
it  were,  let  loose  upon  innocent  men — as 
though  one  had  walked  into  a  trap — all  these 
myths  and  symbols  were  invented  in  past  ages, 
by  discerning,  deep-seeing  men  to  express  the 
impotence  which  they  saw  about  them,  to 
express  the  fact  that  all  men  are  walking  in 
their  dreams  and  their  dreams  control  them. 
What  we  see  is  illusion :  what  we  say  is  illusion. 
The  reality  is  behind  all;  and  we  neither  see  it, 
nor  say  it,  but  only  feel  it. 

So  also  of  those  mysterious  planes  of  identity 
which  lie  between  soul  and  soul,  forming  a 
continuous  country  and  habitable  world, 
between  men  apparently  sundered  from  one 
another  by  every  human  condition — sundered 
by  age,  sex,  epoch,  language,  occupation, 
religion — and  yet  undergoing  the  same  experi 
ence,  valuing  the  same  idea,  twinned  by  the 
fact  that  across  time  and  space  something  in 
them  is  identical.  Some  wheel  in  each  of  them 
is  being  turned  by  the  same  power  at  the  same 
rate,  and  makes  these  creatures  cognate. 
207 


CLIMATE 

They  are  one  thing;  they  are  portions  of  a 
continuous,  indestructible  reality  which  condi 
tions  them  both. 

The  experience  comes  to  almost  everyone 
at  some  time  or  moment  in  his  life,  that  he  is 
nothing  in  himself,  but  only  a  part  of  some 
thing  else.  It  is  a  consciousness  of  the  pro 
cess  of  life,  a  consciousness  of  what  is  happen 
ing.  Whether  through  the  touch  of  sickness 
or  through  intense  concentration,  or  through 
absolute  abstraction,  most  men  have  felt  the 
prick  of  this  thought,  though  the  leisure  and 
the  impulse  to  record  it  have  been  denied  to 
them. 

When  European  cattle  are  taken  to 
Egypt,  their  forms  begin  to  change  in  one  or 
two  generations.  Their  backs  and  hprns 
seem  to  be  imitating  the  cattle  in  the  bas- 
reliefs  of  the  rock  tombs,  which  were  carved 
twenty-five  centuries  before  Christ.  So  too, 
when  American  parents  settle  in  Rome,  their 
children  resemble  Romans.  It  is  not  merely 
in  the  expression  of  the  face,  or  in  the  cut  of  the 
hair.  It  is  in  the  bones  of  the  forehead  and 
in  the  way  the  hair  grows  out  of  the  skin  that 
these  youngsters  resemble  the  modern  inhabit 
ants  of  ancient  Rome.  Professor  Boaz  has 
found  by  measurement  that  the  skulls  of  chil 
dren  born  in  America  to  foreign  parents  assume 
the  American  type.  There  is  something  in  the 
air  here,  or  under  the  earth,  that  is  at  work 
208 


CLIMATE 

upon  the  immigrant  child  even  before  it  is 
born.  On  the  ship  they  are  remodeled,  and 
in  the  womb  they  are  shaped  by  the  power 
that  fashions  the  skull  to  such  dimensions  as 
it  is  provided  we  shall  wear  to-day  in  America. 
If  you  should  steer  the  ship  toward  New  Zea 
land  or  Japan,  the  form  of  the  infant's  cranium 
would  vary  and  be  modified  accordingly.  The 
force  that  accompanied  the  ship  would  arrive 
with  you,  and  be  present  at  your  landing. 
The  child  would  grow  up  in  some  sort  of 
unthinkable  relation  to  the  continent  or 
island  on  which  it  landed.  It  would  be  as 
one  of  the  children  of  that  land — nearer  to 
them  perhaps  than  to  its  parents.  We  may 
call  this  influence  climate,  but  if  we  do  so  we 
must  be  sure  to  remember  that  perhaps  the 
influence  is  really  due  to  soil,  to  electrical, 
magnetic,  or  even  to  sidereal  influences.  As 
the  influence  is  impalpable  and  tremendous,  so 
it  is  unknown  and  perhaps  cannot  be  known. 
I  see  the  immigrant  land  and  toil  and  push 
his  fortunes.  I  see  the  professor,  with  his 
calipers  and  his  microscope,  measuring  the 
immigrant's  brain.  And  above  the  professor, 
bending  over  him  as  he  looks  into  his  micro 
scope,  I  see  the  formative  power  modeling  the 
professor's  skull  as  he  measures  the  skull  of  the 
immigrant — assigning  him  what  he  shall  see 
in  it,  apportioning  to  him  what  he  shall  believe 
and  tell  other  men  about  it — leading  him  on, 
14  209 


CLIMATE 

yes,  leading  him  as  a  child  is  led  by  a  butterfly. 
And  all  this  vision  of  mine  ranks  itself  as  a 
thing  that  has  happened  long  ago,  and  is 
always  happening.  It  is  a  part  of  universal 
experience.  I  that  suffer  it  am  but  feeling 
what  man  has  always  felt,  and  shall  feel  forever 
— the  power  of  God  behind  his  own  illu 
sion,  modeling  his  thoughts — letting  its  influ 
ence  be  shut  off  by  his  opacity,  or  else  flash 
through  him  to  its  own  ends  in  directions 
which  he  cannot  comprehend. 


210 


THE  INFLUENCE  OF  SCHOOLS 


THE  INFLUENCE  OF  SCHOOLS. 

WE  are  obliged  to  approach  any  church 
school  through  our  own  personal  religious 
sentiments.  We  do  all  of  us  approach  it  in 
this  way.  Any  religious  institution  is  a  tiny 
sample  of  the  great  question;  and  whatever  we 
say  of  it  is  a  little  voice  in  the  great  chorus  of 
humanity.  We  cannot  isolate  our  subject:  it 
is  a  part  of  the  great  subject,  religion.  We 
have  no  achromatic  lens  through  which  to 
view  life.  All  that  we  see  is  colored  by  our  own 
past,  and  surely,  for  any  man  to  believe  that 
in  describing  his  youth  or  his  school-days  he 
can  clear  his  mind  of  error,  would  be  the  great 
est  error  and  delusion  of  all.  It  seems  safer, 
then,  in  dealing  with  such  a  tremulous  matter, 
to  lay  it  out  as  simply  as  one  may,  leaving 
others  to  be  the  judge  of  its  value. 

Some  years  ago  I  had  a  long  illness;  and 
during  those  periods  of  mental  fixity  which 
illness  brings  with  it,  my  mind  used  to  dwell  in 
strange  places.  It  would  pause  over  some 
spot  in  the  world — some  room  or  field  that  I 
had  seen,  however  casually,  in  former  years — 
and  would  refuse  to  move  on.  It  would 
choose  its  exact  position  so  that  the  perspective 
213 


INFLUENCE   OF  SCHOOLS 

of  the  place  should  be  accurately  seen,  and 
there  it  would  rest.  Sometimes  for  days  at  a 
time  it  would  remain  as  carefully  placed  as  a 
camera,  giving  no  reason  for  its  choice,  yet  de 
riving  some  mysterious  assistance  from  the 
scene.  The  places  were  always  empty — never 
a  person  in  them.  There  was,  for  example,  a 
particular  nook  by  a  country  roadside — a 
barred  gate  with  elm  trees  bending  above  it 
and  a  meadow  beyond — which  I  had  passed  by 
on  the  way  to  a  child's  funeral  some  years 
before.  This  place  opened  itself  up  out  of 
the  picture-book  of  my  memory,  and  for  some 
weeks  I  lived  within  its  influence — for  there 
was  no  question  that  life  streamed  out  of  it  to 
me. 

Under  these  circumstances  it  was  natural 
enough  that  I  should  sometimes  have  found 
myself  back  as  St.  Paul's  School,  in  Concord, 
New  Hampshire,  and  should  have  wandered 
once  more  in  the  dreamland  of  boyhood.  In 
deed,  during  many  months  of  convalescence, 
I  lived  in  my  imagination  at  St.  Paul's,  al 
ways  alone  with  the  place,  suffering  it  to  move 
itself  through  me  and  present  the  most  for 
gotten  aspects,  angles,  and  bits  of  scenery  with 
silent,  friendly  precision.  Immense  sadness 
everywhere;  immense  power. 

Now  my  connection  with  the  school  had 
been  very  short  and  quite  unsatisfactory.     I 
was  sent  there  as  a  very  small  boy,  remained 
214 


INFLUENCE   OF  SCHOOLS 

less  than  three  years,  and  then  went  home  sick. 
I  had,  in  fact,  an  acute  attack  of  pneumonia 
which  carried  away  with  it  a  nervous  breakdown 
from  which  I  had  been  suffering;  and  it  was 
several  years  before  my  health  became  fully 
re-established.  In  consequence  of  this  experi 
ence  my  views  about  the  school  were  thereafter 
quite  gloomy.  I  regarded  the  place  as  a  relig 
ious  forcing-house,  a  very  dangerous  sort  of 
place  for  any  boy  to  go,  especially  if  he  were  in 
clined  by  nature  toward  religion.  I  habitually 
abused  the  school,  and  I  even  took  the  trouble 
to  go  back  there  and  have  a  quarrel  with  Dr. 
Coit  about  something  he  had  said  or  done 
which  seemed  to  me  to  deserve  the  reprobation 
of  all  just  men.  I  poured  over  him  a  few 
vitriolic  letters;  and  I  still  believe  that  the 
right  was  on  my  side  in  the  matter,  though 
perhaps  I  was  wrong  to  assume  the  r61e  of  the 
Angel  of  Retribution. 

It  was  at  a  date  about  twenty  years  after 
my  leaving  the  school,  and  at  the  age  of 
forty-odd,  and  through  the  medium  of  another 
and  very  severe  illness,  that  my  nature  began 
to  take  up  again  the  threads  of  St.  Paul's 
School  influence,  and  to  receive  the  ideas 
which  Dr.  Coit  had  been  striving  to  convey, 
though  in  forms  that  would  have  been  incom 
prehensible  '.to  himself.  The  school  had 
somehow  been  carrying  on  its  work  within  me 
through  all  these  years. 

215 


INFLUENCE    OF   SCHOOLS 

Youth  is  a  game  of  blindman's  buff,  a  romp 
and  struggle  in  which  we  hold  on  fiercely  and 
shout  loudly,  but  know  less  as  to  whom  we 
are  holding  or  who  is  holding  us  than  we 
shall  ever  know  again.  As  we  grow  older 
we  get  true  glimpses  of  things  far  away;  and 
recognize  at  a  distance  what  we  could  never 
understand  so  long  as  we  were  at  close  quarters 
with  it.  Middle  age  draws  some  curtains 
down,  but  lifts  others;  and  of  all  the  new 
visions  that  come  when  youth  is  past,  there 
is  none  more  thrilling  than  that  new  vision 
of  the  familiar  past  which  shows  us  what 
unsuspected  powers  were  at  play  within  us. 
This  experience  is  necessary  and  useful  to  us; 
and  only  thus  can  we  come  to  understand 
the  incredible  subtlety  of  human  influence. 

Not  long  ago  there  was  a  St.  Paul's  School 
dinner  at  which  two  hundred  and  fifty  men 
met  to  hear  speeches  in  praise  of  their  school 
and  of  its  influence.  Among  other  proceed 
ings  there  was  a  speech  by  one  (not  an  alum 
nus)  who  was  a  prospective  headmaster  of 
the  school.  Now  this  speech  was  a  religious 
appeal,  and  ended  by  a  sort  of  burst  of  feeling, 
only  a  word  or  two  long,  to  the  effect  that 
the  world  was  "God's  World."  I  cannot 
tell  what  it  was  that  startled  me  in  the  recep 
tion  of  the  speech  by  the  audience;  but  I 
think  it  was  the  unexpected  sincerity  of  the 
applause.  It  seemed  as  if  all  these  men 
216 


INFLUENCE   OF   SCHOOLS 

had  been  waiting  all  their  lives  to  hear  this 
thing  said,  and  now  gave  a  great  triumphant, 
unconscious  sigh  and  roar  of  relief  to  hear 
someone  say  it.  I  glanced  critically  about  the 
room.  The  diners  looked  like  any  other  set 
of  diners.  Why  should  they  be  so  much 
moved  by  the  mention  of  the  works  of  God  ? — 
For  they  were  not  applauding  the  school, 
they  were  applauding  the  Creation.  I  looked 
and  pondered,  and  presently  I  remembered 
that  most  of  the  men  at  the  dinner  had  lived 
under  the  personal  influence  of  Dr.  Coit 
during  their  early  and  sensitive  years.  The 
fibres  of  their  being  had  been  searched  and 
softened  by  contact  with  a  nature  whose 
depth  made  up  for  its  every  other  deficiency. 

"I  myself,"  I  reflected,  "am  one  of  them. 
Perhaps  my  experience  with  the  place  is  more 
typical  than  I  had  supposed.  Perhaps  each 
of  these  men  was  offered  something  at  St. 
Paul's  School  which  he  could  not  receive  at 
the  time,  and  therefore  rejected,  but  which 
in  later  life  he  found  again  for  himself  in  a 
new  form,  and  thereafter  accepted  as  part 
of  his  intimate  nature." 

Inasmuch  as  the  whole  nature  of  St. 
Paul's  School  resulted  from  the  manner  of  its 
formation,  we  may  begin  by  a  glance  at  its 
early  days.  The  inception  of  the  place  was 
as  unheralded  as  any  event  could  well  be. 
Dr.  Coit,  being  a  man  with  a  mission  and  a 
217 


INFLUENCE    OF   SCHOOLS 

message,  retired  in  1856  to  a  farm  in  New 
Hampshire,  and  opened  a  school,  having  four 
or  five  pupils  to  start  with.  He  would  neither 
appeal  to  the  public  for  funds  nor  advertise 
for  scholars.*  The  school  was,  at  first,  a 
mere  extension  of  his  family  circle  and  of 
himself;  and  as  it  grew,  it  remained  a  mere 
extension  of  himself.  Persons  became  at 
tached  to  this  family  circle  one  by  one;  and, 
whether  they  were  boys  or  masters  or  servants, 
they  thus,  one  by  one,  became  members  of  a 
sort  of  invisible  and  visible  church,  or  brother 
hood — a  society  of  the  sanctuary.  No  oppos 
ing  or  critical  influence  could  enter  that  circle. 
It  rejected  criticism  as  the  jet  of  a  fountain  re 
jects  a  dried  leaf.  The  whole  system  at  St. 
Paul's  was  really  no  system  at  all,  but  only 
the  unconscious  working  out  of  one  man's 
nature  in  the  formation  of  a  school  community. 
Perhaps  the  important  part  of  any  school  is 
always  no  more  than  that. 

Dr.  Coit  was  a  tall  man  in  a  long  black 
coat;  and,  as  he  moved  and  walked  about 
the  paths  and  corridors,  he  remained  always 
within  an  invisible  tower  of  isolation,  so  that 
you  could  not  be  sure  that  his  feet  rested  on 
quite  the  same  ground  as  your  own.  Half 
the  time  he  was  in  an  abstraction,  but  this  did 
not  prevent  him  from  seeing  and  observing 
everything  and  everybody,  especially  the 
individualities  of  boys,  about  whom  he  ac- 

*The  land  and  funds  were,  during  the  early  years, 
supplied  by  Dr.  George  C.  Shattuck,  of  Boston,  who  had, 
I  believe,  long  harbored  the  idea  of  founding  a  school,  and 
who  gave  his  county  house  and  farm  to  the  purpose. 

218 


INFLUENCE    OF   SCHOOLS 

quired  a  preternatural  astuteness.  He  lived 
within  that  solitude  which  a  great  purpose 
and  constant  prayer  sometimes  cast  about 
a  man.  There  was  a  chasm  between  him 
and  the  rest  of  mankind  which  could  not  be 
bridged  by  trivial  intercourse.  Neither  he 
nor  the  rest  of  mankind  were  at  fault  for  the 
difference  in  tension  between  them.  He  was 
so  charged  with  moral  passion  that  many 
people  could  not  receive  the  delivery  of  it. 

*[  was  never  able  to  establish  a  relation 
with  him,  either  as  a  boy  of  thirteen  or  sub 
sequently.  His  low,  vibrant  voice,  and  his 
hand  laid  gently  upon  one's  shoulder  caused 
such  a  strong  physical,  moral,  and  galvanic 
appeal  to  my  sensibilities  that  I  invariably 
burst  into  tears.  I  think  I  never  got  through 
an  interview  with  him  without  weeping. 
The  appeal  which  his  nature  made  was  the 
appeal  of  enormous  human  feeling,  penned 
up  in  a  narrow  language,  restricted  by  a 
narrow  experience.  This  temperamental  iso 
lation  was,  of  course,  intensified  by  his  be 
coming  a  school-master.  How  strongly  the 
influence  of  such  a  man  must  have  affected 
the  little  family  circle  of  the  early  school  may 
he  imagined.  He  lived  habitually  in  a  state 
of  such  vivid  religious  feeling  that  his  face  was 
ablaze  with  zeal;  and  he  settled  down  to  teach 
school  in  a  farmhouse,  knowing  all  the  while, 
seeing  with  his  mind's  eye  all  the  while,  the 
219 


INFLUENCE    OF   SCHOOLS 

future  of  the  enterprise.  We  can  imagine 
the  fervor  of  the  tiny  community,  and  the  awe 
in  which  it  must  have  stood  toward  the  great 
man. 

And  yet  all  of  his  austerity,  all  of  his  closely 
confined,  ebullient  vitality  was  no  more  than  a 
love  of  men.  Down  to  his  last  days  Dr.  Coit 
never  took  his  solitary  drives  about  the  coun 
tryside  without  stopping  to  bestow  upon  his 
poorer  neighbors  small  offerings  of  food  from 
his  own  table.  It  was  done  furtively  and 
almost  as  an  indulgence  of  those  warm  per 
sonal  feelings  toward  all  humanity,  of  which 
his  mission  denied  him  the  expression. 
Behind  his  towering  zeal  there  was  a  suffering, 
benevolent,  and  humble  person. 

Dr.  Coit  had,  as  it  were,  no  secular  side 
to  his  human  intercourse,  and  the  social  side 
of  St.  Paul's  School  was,  in  consequence, 
always  a  little  stiff  and  ecclesiastical.  On 
the  other  hand,  his  romantic  and  spontaneous 
feelings  were  permitted  the  outlet  of  secular 
literature,  both  ancient  and  modern;  and  he 
inspired  his  school  with  a  love  of  letters. 
You  were  somehow  made  welcome  to  the  joys 
of  reading.  The  old-fashioned  family  educa 
tion  and  atmosphere  of  a  gentleman's  home 
qualified  the  boarding-school  book-shelf.  An 
interest  in  cultivation  often  goes  with  high- 
pitched,  ecclesiastical  natures;  witness  the 
outburst  of  literature  in  the  twelfth  and 
220 


INFLUENCE   OF   SCHOOLS 

thirteenth  centuries,  and  all  that  profound 
thought  which  makes  that  epoch  in  some  ways 
outshine  the  Renaissance.  Not  only  did  Dr. 
Coit  enjoy  romantic  literature,  but  he  was  him 
self  like  some  character  in  mediaeval  romance — 
like  Arthur,  or  Merlin;  and  the  power  of  his 
personality  was  so  great  that  whenever  I  am 
at  St.  Paul's,  I  still  feel  as  if  the  old  Doctor 
were,  somehow,  not  far  away.  I  should  hardly 
be  surprised  to  see  him  step  out  from  behind  a 
clump  of  bushes  on  the  margin  of  the  stream, 
or  to  come  across  his  rapt  figure,  on  the  athletic 
field,  standing  as  I  have  seen  him  stand  to 
watch  the  games,  shading  his  eyes  with  his 
hand. 

Dr.  Coit  was  one  of  those  saints  who  come 
into  the  world  determined  to  found  something: 
they  are  predestinate  founders.  They  make 
and  occupy  the  thing  they  found,  repelling  all 
the  world  beside,  fleeing  from  all  the  world 
except  this;  and  they  generally  become  tyrants 
within  the  boundaries  of  their  own  creation. 
The  tyrant  founder-saint  is  a  well-known 
figure  in  the  Middle  Ages;  St.  Bernard  is  a 
typical  example;  and  Dr.  Coit  would  have 
been  more  readily  understood  in  any  previous 
age  of  the  world  than  he  was  in  his  own.  He 
was  in  himself  a  piece  of  the  Middle  Ages,  and 
to  have  known  him  is  to  have  come  in  contact 
with  all  the  piety,  the  romanticism,  the  mystery, 
the  beauty,  the  depth  and  power  of  human 

221 


INFLUENCE   OF  SCHOOLS 

emotion  which  flamed  over  Europe  in  Medi 
aeval  times,  and  which  have  been  temporarily 
forgotten.  To-day  these  provinces  of  human 
existence  are  abandoned  to  the  art  critic,  to  the 
moralist,  and  to  the  sentimental  writer — to  the 
very  classes  of  persons  who  are  the  least  likely 
to  understand  them.  If  we  except  the  Ger 
man  philosophic  historian,  I  suppose  that  no 
person  in  the  world  is  so  cut  off  by  nature  from 
an  understanding  of  St.  Francis  or  of  Thomas 
Aquinas  as  is  the  modern  aesthetic  person,  who 
cultivates  a  sympathetic  interest  in  religion. 
The  only  hope  of  understanding  the  Middle 
Ages  is  through  a  living  personal  belief  in 
Christianity. 

It  is  only  for  convenience  that  I  refer  to  the 
Middle  Ages  in  order  to  explain  Dr.  Coit.  His 
right  to  exist  as  a  modern  is  incontestible:  he 
was  as  modern  as  anyone  else.  He  merely 
belonged  to  a  type  which,  for  the  tim?  being, 
has  become  rare.  To  us  to-day,  the  tyrant 
founder-saint  of  the  Middle  Ages  appears  like 
a  person  not  wholly  a  Christian.  Judged  by 
the  standards  of  the  New  Testament,  these 
men  seem  to  be  only  half  converted,  or  three- 
quarters  converted,  to  Christianity,  the  rest 
of  them  remaining  Tartar.  The  non-con 
verted  fraction  of  them  makes  them  autocrats 
who  trust  no  one  but  themselves,  men  of 
unfaith  who  rely  on  bolts  and  bars,  on  ordi 
nances  and  arrangements. 

222 


INFLUENCE   OF   SCHOOLS 

At  the  worst,  these  enthusiasts  are  schemers, 
unscrupulous,  crafty,  and  cruel.  At  the  best 
they  are  merely  opinionated,  arbitrary,  and 
lonely  men.  Their  weakness  is  seen  only  in 
the  fact  that  they  have  a  slightly  blind  side,  a 
side  on  which  walk  the  favorites  and  hypo 
crites  who  have  been  formed  in  the  shadow  of 
their  tyranny.  The  same  parasites  which 
grow  upon  autocracy  in  the  great  world  seem 
often  to  appear  in  the  miniature  kingdom 
of  a  school. 

That  Christianity  should  have  given  rise 
to  this  peculiar  kind  of  tyrant  has  often  thrown 
me  into  wonderment.  It  seems  as  if  any 
formulation  of  spiritual  truth,  uttered  by  a 
higher  intelligence,  were  apt  to  act  as  an 
astringent  upon  the  lower  intelligence.  The 
bread  of  life  poisons  many  men.  The  formula 
means  more  than  the  neophyte  is  able  to 
understand;  and  this  overplus  of  meaning 
stimulates  him  to  fierceness.  The  phenom 
enon  may  be  observed  on  a  small  scale  by 
anyone  who  will  contrast  the  teachings  of 
Froebel  with  the  methods  often  found  in 
kindergartens.  Each  mind  in  the  world  is 
capable  of  a  different  degree  of  abstraction; 
and  when  a  mind  is  stretched  to  its  widest 
and  you  give  it  still  something  more,  you 
arouse  passion.  At  any  rate,  the  fact  remains 
that  Christ's  gentlest  words  have,  as  he  pre 
dicted,  become  fire  and  sword  in  the  world, 
223 


INFLUENCE   OF  SCHOOLS 

and  that  through  this  fire  and  sword  truth 
spreads.  Men  like  Dr.  Coit,  for  all  their 
fury  and  for  all  their  narrowness,  leave  peace 
in  their  wake,  and  bequeath  to  their  followers 
not  only  gentleness,  but  breadth  of  view. 
Their  unselfishness — their  powerlessness  to  be 
other  than  they  are — touches  the  heart  of 
the  world.  Christ  has  been  in  their  dungeons 
all  the  while. 

I  do  not  know  whether  it  was  the  result  of 
Dr.  Coit's  own  prophetic  nature  or  the  result 
of  a  more  reasoned  theory  about  the  education 
of  boys;  but  the  fact  remains  that  at  St.  Paul's 
School  you  were  encouraged  to  dream.  You 
were  permitted  to  wander  alone  in  the  woods. 
You  were  left  much  to  yourself;  and  the  fact 
that  you  were  a  thoughtful  child,  slow  in 
development  and  perhaps  backward  in  your 
studies  was  allowed  for.  They  understood 
the  need  of  letting  God  attend  the  child,  and 
of  not  being  too  much  worried  about  the  out 
come.  There  is  a  divergence  of  feeling 
among  modern  school-masters  as  to  how 
much  boys  should  be  left  to  themselves.  The 
freedom  accorded  to  us  at  St.  Paul's  resulted, 
no  doubt,  from  the  original  domestic,  non- 
institutional  atmosphere  of  the  place.  A 
boy  who  is  living  at  home  in  the  country 
always  has  a  good  deal  of  time  to  himself. 
The  school  was  at  first  a  mere  country  home 
in  which  a  clergyman  conducted  the  educa- 
224 


INFLUENCE   OF   SCHOOLS 

tion  of  boys — appending  it  to  his  own  family 
life;  and  the  traditions  of  boyhood-in-the- 
country  survived  as  the  school  grew  to  more 
serious  proportions.  The  place  itself,  more 
over,  was  an  example  of  independence  and 
natural  growth  rather  than  of  watched  assist 
ance.  It  was  not  the  child  of  riches,  receiving 
all  that  money  and  thought  could  give  even 
from  its  birth  onward;  but  was  rather  the 
child  of  hunger  and  thirst,  thriving  upon 
neglect,  and  gaining  in  character  and  in  vigor 
throughout  a  youth  of  hardy  loneliness. 

To  my  mind  the  insolation  of  St.  Paul's  is 
its  strongest  feature,  its  rarest  influence.  The 
founding  of  institutions  is  done  to-day  by  the 
circulation  of  petitions,  by  the  calling  of 
friends  into  a  circle  and  the  issuing  of  stock  or 
advertisements.  Hardly  any  other  method 
is  deemed  possible  by  practical  men.  The 
institutions  thus  founded  are  in  very  close 
touch  with  their  public.  They  rely  upon  their 
patrons,  and  are  controlled  by  their  clients. 
They  become  the  creatures  of  the  age  they  live 
in.  But  St.  Paul's  School  was  not  the  creature 
of  any  age.  It  was  the  child  of  one  man  who 
planted  his  house  upon  a  hill.  As  it  has  owed 
nothing  to  the  age,  so  it  has  remained  in 
accessible  to  the  influences  of  the  age.  It  is 
not  in  competition  with  other  schools;  it  is  not 
affected  by  the  fluctuating  and  journalistic 
currents  of  contemporary  thought;  it  has,  one 
15  225 


INFLUENCE   OF   SCHOOLS 

might  say,  no  relation  to  the  superficial  in 
fluences  in  America.  The  place  seems  not 
to  be  a  part  of  modern  American  life.  We 
know,  of  course,  that  the  school  is  in  reality 
a  part  of  that  life,  and  relies,  as  every  school 
must,  on  the  community  at  large  into  which 
its  roots  extend.  The  apparent  isolation  of 
St.  Paul's  comes  from  the  fact  that  it  represents 
few  influences.  These  influences  are  every 
where  prevalent,  but  they  are  not  everywhere 
visible.  The  school  seems  to  live  to  itself;  but 
in  reality  it  draws  its  life  from  those  deep  and 
invisible  sources  of  religious  feeling  which 
exist,  but  which  do  not  come  to  the  surface  in 
contemporary  life. 

That  there  should  be  a  spot  in  the  United 
States  having  the  atmosphere  of  another 
world,  that  is  the  valuable  and  wonderful  part 
of  St.  Paul's  School.  To  plunge  a  boy  even 
for  the  fraction  of  a  year  into  this  pool  is  to 
give  him  a  new  outlook  upon  humanity. 
What  is  it  that  we  lack  in  America  ?  Why,  we 
lack  variety.  Our  interests  and  pleasures,  our 
occupations  in  social,  in  commercial,  in  reli 
gious  life  are  all  so  stamped  with  the  identical 
pattern — each  of  them  is  so  like  the  rest — our 
views  and  feelings  are  so  narrow — that  to  put 
an  American  youth  to  school  in  Central  Asia 
for  a  year  or  two,  under  the  Grand  Llama, 
would  be  apt  to  make  a  man  of  him.  We  need 
to  give  our  boys  an  insight  into  some  species  of 
226 


INFLUENCE   OF   SCHOOLS 

life  that  belongs  to  the  great  world,  the 
historic  world,  the  empire  of  the  soul.  We 
cannot  snatch  this  life  from  Europe  without 
running  the  danger  of  that  expatriation  which 
makes  men  shallow.  We  must  find  and 
create  centres  of  it  upon  our  own  shores — 
centres  of  social  life  devoted  to  unworldly 
aims.  Not  only  for  our  children,  but  for 
ourselves  have  we  felt  this  need.  New  well- 
springs  in  our  heart  and  intelligence  are  un 
locked  by  living  for  some  period  of  our  lives 
in  such  a  community;  and  the  earlier  in  life 
we  can  receive  this  experience  the  richer  will  it 
leave  us. 

A  school  is  far  more  than  the  school  com 
munity  which  gives  it  a  name.  A  school  is 
the  whole  body  of  graduates,  friends,  and 
fosterers,  whose  affections  are  attached  to  the 
place,  whose  memories  go  back  to  it,  whose 
character  has  been  formed  by  it.  These 
people,  though  they  exist  dispersedly,  have  an 
influence  in  common.  They  belong  to  a 
club.  They  are  united  by  one  of  the  strongest 
ties  that  can  bind  men  together.  This  club 
is  as  much  a  part  of  the  school  as  the  school 
itself.  The  stream  of  boys  flowing  from  the 
club  to  the  school  constitutes  a  sort  of  river 
of  time,  a  perpetual  current  of  the  ideas  of 
the  founder,  an  immortality  of  influence. 
This  stream  must  change,  of  course,  but  it 
changes  slowly — so  great  is  the  conservatism 
227 


INFLUENCE   OF   SCHOOLS 

of  boys  at  school,  and  of  old  boys  sending 
their  sons  to  a  school.  I  suppose  that  of  all 
human  institutions  a  boy's  school  is,  by  its 
nature,  the  most  traditional  and  old-fashioned. 
The  boys  regard  themselves  as  the  school, 
and  regard  the  masters  as  necessary  figure 
heads;  and  in  any  large  school,  where  the 
mass  and  volume  of  young  life  rolls  on  with 
out  much  possible  interference  from  above, 
there  is  a  good  deal  of  truth  in  the  conception. 

When  one  hears  other  people  talking  about 
their  pet  school  there  is  a  personal  ring  to 
the  conversation  which  does  not  always  please 
us.  The  truth  is  that  the  foundation  of  a 
school  is  a  matter  of  personal  magnetism, 
and  that  any  school  becomes  a  sort  of  clan  or 
clique.  It  is  no  accident  that  certain  partic 
ular  boys  are  sent  to  a  certain  particular 
school.  They  go  there  as  the  needle  swings 
to  the  pole.  They  flow  there  as  the  ants 
flow  to  their  native  hill.  The  matter  is 
settled  by  personal  affinity. 

This  is  a  fact  about  all  leadership;  only  it 
receives  very  visible  proof  in  the  case  of 
school-masters.  Every  man's  followers  are 
given  to  him  by  destiny;  and  a  leader  of  men 
may  see  himself  in  this  looking-glass  if  he 
have  a  mind  to  do  so.  It  will  give  him  a 
truer  picture  of  his  own  soul  than  he  will 
find  elsewhere  in  the  world.  The  followers 
of  any  man  resemble  each  other,  and,  of  course, 
228 


INFLUENCE   OF  SCHOOLS 

they  also  resemble  their  leader;  though  their 
resemblance  to  the  leader  is  not  always 
apparent,  but  belongs  rather  to  the  category 
of  spiritual  mysteries. 

Dr.  Coit  himself  was  an  ecclesiastic,  rustling 
with  dogma  and  vestment  and  hav'ng  ritual 
and  anathema  in  his  very  being.  And  yet, 
as  a  matter  of  fact,  he  did  attract  to  himself 
persons  who  at  first  sight  do  not  seem  to 
resemble  him  at  all.  The  parents  who  sent 
their  boys  to  the  school  were,  as  a  rule,  a  some 
what  commonplace  and  very  valuable  sort 
of  people.  They  were  good,  straight-forward, 
God-fearing  burghers,  who  wished  their 
sons  to  become  honorable  men,  and  were 
rather  deficient  in  business  and  social  ambi 
tion  for  their  children.  These  people,  quite 
often,  did  not  like  Dr.  Coit,  nor  understand 
him;  but  they  felt  that  he  would  do  for  their 
sons  what  they  wished  done.  They  were 
warm  people:  he  was  a  hot  person.  Their 
quiet  natures  responded  to  his  great  religious 
faith  by  an  act  of  personal  trust;  and  that 
was  enough  for  Dr.  Coit,  for  he  wanted  the 
boys. 

After  the  death  of  the  first  Doctor  there  fol 
lowed  a  mitigation  of  religious  discipline  at  the 
school  and  a  relaxation  in  the  social  atmos 
phere.  The  quality  of  the  place,  however,  re 
mained  the  same.  The  volume  of  life  rolled 
with  its  old  momentum.  The  characteristic 
229 


INFLUENCE   OF   SCHOOLS 

charm  of  the  place  remained  unchanged.  In 
the  practical  working  of  the  organization  there 
ensued,  I  believe,  great  disturbances;  but  they 
did  not  affect  the  spirit  of  the  place  so  far  as  an 
alumnus  could  observe.  The  same  magic  wave 
was  over  all  as  before.  Indeed,  for  my  own 
part,  I  never  could  thoroughly  enjoy  St.  Paul's 
School  while  the  old  Doctor  was  alive.  His 
peace  came  to  me  only  after  he  had  departed; 
and  whenever  I  am  at  Concord  it  seems  to 
roll  through  the  fields  and  to  overspread  the 
grounds  like  a  mist.  In  returning  to  St.  Paul's, 
or  in  taking  leave  of  it,  my  imagination  is 
always  haunted  by  the  idea  of  the  place  as  it 
must  have  been  in  its  infancy — the  farmhouse, 
the  family  group,  and  the  intense  soul  of  the 
Doctor.  When  I  think  of  that  passionate 
fountain  of  life,  rising  and  bubbling  in  the 
remote  New  Hampshire  wilderness,  in  a 
solitude  as  complete  as  that  of  Abraham  on  the 
plains  of  Mamre,  I  cannot  but  be  moved. 
Here  was  faith  indeed!  A  project  all  aim  and 
no  means.  If  a  strange  quietude  lies  over  the 
acres  of  St.  Paul's  School  to-day,  and  steeps 
in  a  perpetual  peace  the  little  community 
which  this  fiery  soul  left  behind  him,  it  is 
because  in  this  place  a  man  once  wrestled 
with  invisible  antagonists  and  saw  ladders 
going  up  into  heaven,  with  the  angels  ascending 
and  descending  upon  them.  The  school  is  a 
monument  to  this  vision — a  heap  of  stones 
230 


INFLUENCE    OF   SCHOOLS 

cast  there,  one  by  one,  by  followers  and  by 
witnesses. 

The  fiftieth  anniversary  of  the  school 
brought  together  all  its  adherents  and  fosterers 
and  old  boys,  and  peopled  Concord  for  a  day 
with  the  race  of  gentle  burghers  that  had 
followed  the  Doctor.  It  was  a  touching 
assemblage;  because  here  in  these  people  was 
to  be  found  the  peace  of  which  he  had  all  his 
life  preached  so  much  and  felt  so  little.  He 
had  attained  it  in  others.  He  had  left  it  as  a 
dower  and  an  inheritance  to  the  institution  that 
he  loved  almost  too  passionately.  Out  of  the 
strong  had  come  forth  sweetness. 


THE  ESTHETIC. 


THE  .ESTHETIC 

THERE  are  two  distinct  functions  of  the 
mind  with  regard  to  art:  first,  the  creative 
function;  second,  the  enjoying  function.  The 
first  is  the  r61e  of  the  artist,  the  second,  the 
r61e  of  the  public.  The  difference  between 
these  two  roles  is  that  in  the  artist's  rdle 
the  active  part — the  part  that  counts,  the 
part  that  makes  the  beholder  have  sensa 
tions — is  unconscious.  The  artist  should  be 
wholly  creator,  and  not  at  all  spectator.  If, 
while  he  works,  there  is  anything  in  him  that 
applauds  and  enjoys  as  a  spectator  might 
do,  this  part  will  leave  a  touch  of  virtuosity, 
of  self-consciousness,  of  exaggeration,  in  his 
work.  If  the  matter  be  humorous,  this 
exaggeration  will  perhaps  appear  in  the 
form  of  smartness;  if  the  matter  be  serious, 
as  sentimentality  or  melodrama. 

The  artist  must  not  try  to  enjoy  his  own 
work  by  foretaste,  or  he  will  injure  it.  His 
aesthetic  sense  must  not  be  active  during 
the  hours  of  creation;  it  must  be  consumed 
in  the  furnace  of  unconscious  intellectual 
effort.  The  reductio  ad  absurdum  of  the 
view  here  suggested  would  be  somewhat 
as  follows: — The  supremely  great  artist  would 
be  indifferent  to  the  fate  of  his  own  works, 

235 


THE  AESTHETIC 

because  he  would  not  know  they  were  great. 
The  whole  creature  would  have  become 
so  unconscious  during  the  act  of  creation 
that  there  would  be  nothing  left  over  which 
should  return  to  mankind  and  say,  "See 
this  great  work!"  This  seems  to  have  hap 
pened  in  the  case  of  Shakespeare. 

It  must  be  confessed  that  there  are  very 
great  artists  in  whose  work  we  find  a  self- 
conscious,  self-appreciatory  note.  There  is, 
at  times,  such  a  note  in  Dante,  and  in  Goethe. 
And  it  seems  to  me  that  even  here  the  note 
a  little  deflects  our  attention  from  the  matter 
in  hand.  Not  by  reason  of  this  element, 
but  in  spite  of  it,  does  their  work  prevail. 

The  practical  lesson  for  any  artist  to  draw 
from  such  an  analysis  as  the  present  is  the 
lesson  of  detachment,  almost  of  indifference. 
An  artist  must  trust  his  material.  The 
stuff  in  hand  is  serious,  delicate,  self-deter 
mined  and  non-emotional.  The  organic, 
inner  logic  of  the  thing  done  may  reach 
points  of  complexity,  points  of  climax,  which — 
except  in  the  outcome — are  incomprehensible. 
They  must  not  be  appreciated  in  the  interim, 
but  only  obeyed.  In  the  final  review,  and 
at  a  distance  they  are  to  justify  themselves, 
but  not  in  the  making. 

The  question  of  whether  or  not  an  artist 
has  succeeded,  whether  or  not  he  has  made 
something  that  speaks,  is  one  which  it  is 
236 


THE  AESTHETIC 

generally  impossible  for  the  artist  himself 
to  answer.  He  cares  too  much,  and  he 
stands  too  near  the  material.  Sometimes 
a  man  having  immense  experience,  and 
having  acquired  that  sort  of  indifference 
which  grows  out  of  a  supernal  success,  can 
make  a  just  estimate  of  one  of  his  own  later 
works;  but,  in  general,  the  artist  must  stand 
mum  and  bite  his  nails  if  he  wishes  to  find 
out  what  there  was  in  him.  Let  him  be 
perfectly  assured  that  the  truth  of  the  matter 
will  get  to  him,  if  he  will  only  do  nothing 
except  desire  the  truth.  Someone  will  say 
something  not  intended  for  his  ears,  which 
will  reveal  the  whole  matter.  This  is  the 
hard,  heroic  course  which  wisdom  dictates 
to  all  artists,  except,  perhaps,  to  those  very 
gifted  persons  who  by  their  endowment 
are  already  among  the  elect.  Most  men 
are  obliged  to  mine  in  their  endowment 
and  draw  it  to  the  surface  through  years 
of  hard  labor.  The  pretty  good  artist  has 
need  of  the  fortitude  and  self-effacement 
of  a  saint. 

Thus  much  of  the  creative  side  of  art. 
Our  conceptions  of  the  subject,  however, 
are  colored  by  the  emotional  view  proper 
to  the  grand  public.  The  receptive  function, 
the  enjoying  function,  the  aesthetic  sense, 
as  it  is  often  called,  is  very  generally  supposed 
to  be  art  itself.  Almost  all  writing  on  art 

237 


THE  AESTHETIC 

has  been  done  by  men  who  knew  only  the 
aesthetic  side  of  the  matter.  Now  the  en 
joyment  of  art  is  a  very  common,  very  con 
scious,  very  intense  experience;  and  yet  it 
is  not  a  very  serious  affair  compared  to 
the  creation  of  art.  It  does  not  affect  the 
recipient  to  any  such  depths  of  his  nature, 
as  one  might  expect  it  to  do,  from  the  vivid 
ness  of  his  feelings  during  the  experience. 
It  leaves  in  him,  as  a  general  rule,  no  knowl 
edge  about  the  art  itself,  no  understanding 
of  the  rod  he  has  been  lashed  with,  no  sus 
picion  of  the  intellectual  nature  of  the  vehicle. 
Esthetic  appreciation  gives  a  man  the 
illusion  that  he  is  being  spiritually  made 
over  and  enlarged;  and  yet  that  apprecia 
tion  is  capable  of  an  absolute  divorcement 
from  the  intellect.  It  is — to  take  the  extreme 
case — very  strong  in  sleep.  Dr.  Holmes 
has  recorded,  in  his  own  felicitous  way, 
the  experience,  common  to  sensitive  people, 
of  writing  down  a  dream-poem  at  midnight 
and  discovering  in  its  place  at  dawn  a  few 
lines  of  incomprehensible  rubbish.  The 
aesthetic  sense  is  easily  intensified  by  stimu 
lants,  by  tea,  coffee  and  tobacco.  Anything 
that  excites  the  heart  or  stimulates  the  emo 
tions — praise,  happiness,  success,  change  of 
scene,  any  relief  from  mental  tension — is 
apt  to  give  a  man  new,  and  sudden  entry 
into  unexplored  worlds  of  art.  He  thinks 

238 


THE  ESTHETIC 

himself  a  new  man.  And  yet  this  man 
stands,  perhaps,  in  as  great  danger  of  loss 
as  he  does  in  hope  of  gain.  It  is  not  through 
receptivity,  but  through  activity,  that  men 
are  really  changed. 

How  trivial  men  become  who  live  solely 
in  the  appreciation  of  the  fine  arts  all  of  us 
know.  The  American  who  lives  abroad 
is  an  intensely  receptive  being;  but  he  has 
divorced  himself  from  the  struggles  of  a 
normal  social  existence,  from  communal 
life  and  duty.  His  love  of  the  fine  arts  does 
not  save  him,  but  seems  rather  to  enfeeble 
him  the  more.  No  European  can  effect  a 
similar  divorce  in  his  own  life;  for  the  Euro 
pean  is  living  at  home:  his  social  and  political 
obligations  make  a  man  of  him.  Besides 
this,  the  fine  arts  are  an  old  story  to  the 
European;  and  he  does  not  go  mad  about 
them,  as  the  American  Indian  goes  mad 
about  whiskey.  The  European  is  immune 
to  the  aesthetic;  and  neither  a  fine  wainscot 
nor  a  beautiful  doorknob  can  have  the 
same  power  over  him  that  it  may  have  over 
that  zealous,  high-strung,  new  discoverer 
of  the  old  world,  the  American  who  begins 
to  realize  what  good  decoration  really  means. 
Let  anyone  who  thinks  that  this  impoverish 
ment  is  a  purely  American  disease  read 
the  description  of  the  Stanhope  family  in 
Trollope's  "Barchester  Towers."  Here  is  the 

239 


THE  ESTHETIC 

beefiest  kind  of  a  British  county  family, 
reduced  to  anemia  by  residence  in  Italy. 
Prolonged  exile,  and  mere  receptivity  have 
withdrawn  the  energy  from  the  organs  of 
these  people. 

It  will  be  noticed  that  in  those  cases  where 
art  is  an  enfeebling  influence  there  is  always 
a  hiatus  between  the  public  and  the  artist. 
Let  us  consider  the  case  of  the  folk-song 
as  sung  by  the  peasants  of  Suabia.  Such 
songs  are  written  by  one  peasant  and  sung 
by  the  next.  The  author  and  the  singer 
and  the  hearer  are  all  one.  To  the  audience 
the  song  is  life  and  emotion,  social  inter 
course,  love,  friendship,  the  landscape,  phil 
osophy,  prayer,  natural  happiness.  You  can 
hardly  differentiate,  in  this  case,  between 
the  artist  and  the  public :  both  are  unconscious. 
But  if  you  take  that  song  and  sing  it  in  a 
London  drawing-room,  or  on  a  ranch  in 
Colorado,  it  will  perform  a  very  different 
function  in  the  audience.  To  these  foreigners 
the  song  is  a  pleasing  opiate.  They  hold 
it  like  a  warm  animal  to  their  breast.  The 
Oxford  pundit  who  raves  over  a  Greek  coin, 
the  cold-hearted  business  magnate  in  New 
York  who  enjoys  the  opera — these  people 
live  in  so  remote  a  relation  to  the  human 
causes,  impulses,  and  conditions  behind  the 
arts  they  love,  that  their  enjoyment  is  exotic : 
it  is  more  purely  receptive,  more  remote 
240 


THE  ESTHETIC 

from    personal   experience   than   the   enjoy 
ment  of  any  living  and  native  art  could  be. 

A  certain  sickness  follows  the  indulgence 
in  art  that  is  remote  from  the  admirer's 
environment.  This  slightly  morbid  side  of 
aestheticism  has  been  caricatured  to  the 
heart's  content.  The  dilettante  and  the 
critic  are  well-known  types.  To  a  super 
ficial  view  these  men  seem  like  enemies  of 
the  living  artist.  They  are  always  standing 
ready  to  eat  up  his  works  as  soon  as  they 
shall  be  born.  Goethe  thought  criticism 
and  satire  the  two  natural  enemies  to  all 
liberty,  and  to  all  poetry  proceeding  from  a 
spontaneous  impulse.  And  surely  the  massive 
authority  of  learned  critics  who  know  every 
thing,  and  are  yet  ignorant  of  the  first  prin 
ciples  of  their  subject,  hangs  like  an  avalanche 
above  the  head  of  every  young  creator.  We 
cannot,  however,  to-day  proceed  as  if  we 
were  early  Greeks,  stepping  forward  in  roseate 
unconsciousness.  The  critics  and  their  hurdy- 
gurdy  are  a  part  of  our  life,  and  have  been 
so  for  centuries. 

The  brighter  side  of  the  matter  is  that 
the  aesthetic  person,  even  when  morbid, 
is  often  engaged  in  introducing  new  and 
valuable  arts  to  his  countrymen.  The  dil 
ettante  who  brings  home  china  and  violins 
and  Japanese  bronzes  is  the  precursor  of 
the  domestic  artist. 

241 


THE  ESTHETIC 

We  must  now  return  to  the  two  functions 
of  art,  and  endeavor  to  bring  them  into  some 
sort  of  common  focus.  We  cannot  hope  to 
understand  or  to  reconcile  them  perfectly. 
We  cannot  hope  to  know  what  art  is.  Art 
is  life,  and  any'  expression  of  art  becomes 
a  new  form  of  life.  A  merchant  in  Boston 
in  1850  travels  in  Italy,  and  brings  home 
a  Murillo.  Some  years  later  a  highly  edu 
cated  dilettante  discovers  the  Murillo  in 
Boston,  and  writes  his  dithyrambs  about 
it.  Some  years  later  still,  there  arises  a 
young  painter,  who  perhaps  does  not  paint 
very  well,  and  yet  he  is  nearer  to  the  mystery 
than  the  other  two.  All  these  men  are  parts 
of  the  same  movement,  and  are  essential 
to  each  other;  though  the  contempt  they 
feel  for  each  other  might  conceal  this  from 
us,  as  it  does  from  themselves.  All  of  them 
are  held  together  by  an  invisible  attraction 
and  are  servants  of  the  same  force.  This 
force  it  is  which,  in  the  future,  may  weld 
together  a  few  enthusiasts  into  a  sort  of 
secret  society,  or  may  even  single  out  some 
one  man,  and  see  and  speak  through  him. 
Then,  as  the  force  passes,  it  will  leave  itself 
reflected  in  pictures,  which  remain  as  the 
record  of  its  flight. 


242 


HOME  USE 


U.C.  BERKELEY  LIBRARIES 


0020^25810 


THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  UBRARY 


• 
• 


• 


• 

. 

. 


